Anatomy of production functions: a technological menu and a choice of the best technology

Abstract

Jones (2005) proposed microfoundations for the Cobb-Douglas production function. We show that Jones' technological menu is a special case of a concept of support set discussed by Matveenko (1997) and Rubinov, Glover (1998) by use of a duality approach. We use this approach to clarify the relation between different production functions and technological menus. Also we construct an "ideas model" generating CES production function.Production function, technological menu, Leontief function, Cobb-Douglas function, CES function, duality, support set