A Chronological Study of Total Factor Productivity and Agricultural Growth in U.S. Agriculture

This paper estimates the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) index for the U.S. agricultural sector from the period 1970 to 2004 and decomposes the resulting TFP estimation in the Trans-logarithmic production function for U.S. agriculture for the same period to determine the residual measure that explains variation in output aside from land, labor and capital inputs. The objective is to identify the major sources of agricultural productivity in the U.S. from the period mentioned and furthermore estimate the residual in the production function that the Neoclassical production function does not explicitly explain.The results indicate a collective contribution of intermediate inputs such as pesticides use and energy inputs and infrastructural development spending such as overall federal disbursement on highway on TFP and consequently on agricultural output growth for the time period under consideration