Measuring Inputs in Agriculture: A Critical Survey

1.1 In this preliminary report, the measurement of inputs in agriculture is discussed solely from the point of view of aggregate productivity analysis. Statistical series that are criticized here may be perfectly adequate for their original purposes and no reflection is intended on their producers. The comments are necessarily brief and selective. Some of the conclusions may appear extreme, because they are stated without the detailed explanation and qualification that will be possible in the full report of the study. 1.2 The discussion is limited mainly to conceptual problems, and ignores the important statistical problems of sources of data, randomness, size of sample, and so on. Most of the attention is paid to two problems: the changing quality of agricultural inputs and the measurement of the services and value of capital equipment on farms.