General Equilibrium Analysis of Supply and Factor Returns in U.S. Agriculture, 1949-91

General equilibrium - open economy trade theory and time series data on the US agricultural sector are used to provide insights into the structure of agricultural supply, factor returns and linkages to the rest of the economy. Output expansion and changes in factor rental rates depend on relative factor intensities. Theoretically consistent price elasticities of supply and factor rental rates are also obtained. The effect of the rest of the economy, particularly the increase in price of services, is found to have relatively large negative impacts on agriculture. The static effects on growth of supply and factor rental rates tend to be dominated by rate effects which are shown to have strong positive effects on returns to family labor. J.E.L. classification numbers: 013, 030, Qll