Translog ou Cobb-Douglas? Le rôle des durées d'utilisation des facteurs

Using French data on industrial firms over the period 1989-2001, the authors estimate a "flexible" Translog production function that accounts for the volumes and durations of factor utilization. They draw on the framework proposed by Blundell and Bond (2000), assuming that serially correlated shocks allow a dynamic representation of the production function, and they choose the system-generalized method of moments as the reference estimation method. The authors show that duration of capital utilization is statistically significant and that the dynamic common-factor representation cannot be rejected. Furthermore, the duration of work is not statistically significant. Finally, the authors cannot reject the assumption of a Cobb-Douglas technology. Their result can be explained by the fact that durations of factor utilization are explicitly taken into consideration in the production function. Otherwise, the Translog specification is preferred to the Cobb-Douglas production function.