The Effect of Technology on the Farm Labor Market

The primary purpose of this paper was to estimate the time path of the effect of technology, as measured by research and extension expenditures, on the farm labor market. A distributed lag function was estimated by incorporating the concept of rational distributed lag functions, as developed by Dale Jorgenson, into a simultaneous equation model of the farm labor market. The estimated lag distribution, even though quite long, had a “hump” as hypothesized. The implicit production function implied a positive payoff to the economy from research and extension expenditures.