A Multi‐product Multi‐input Cost Function Analysis of Northern Ireland Agriculture, 1955–85

A multi‐product, multi‐input translog cost function is used to investigate the structure of Northern Ireland agriculture. The two‐output four‐input cost model utilizes duality theory to facilitate econometric measurement of partial elasticities of substitution between inputs for each year, the annual own‐ and cross‐price elasticities of input demand, the annual overall scale economy parameter, and the annual rate of Hicks‐neutral technical change. It also permits an assessment of cost complementarity between the two outputs. The results obtained are compared with a similar, earlier study (Ray, 1982) on United States agriculture, and with descriptive analyses of Northern Ireland agriculture.