Theodore P. Lianos

The Relative Share of Labor in United States Agriculture, 1949–1968

The sources of change in the relative share of labor in the American agricultural sector are examined within the framework of neoclassical production theory. It is found that the observed decline in labors relative share is due to the increasing capital-labor ratio adjusted for changing efficiency of factors and to the elasticity of substitution which is greater than unity. It is also found that the efficiency of capital is increasing faster than that of labor and that technological change in American agriculture has been labor-saving.

Impact of Minimum Wages Upon the Level and Composition of Agricultural Employment

This paper investigates the effects of minimum wages on agricultural employment in the southern U. S. The principal result was that the introduction of minimum wages decreased the employment of hired and total (hired plus family) labor. Estimates of employment reduction of hired labor due to minimum wages are provided.

American Agriculture and the Prophecy of Increasing Misery

A Marxian analysis of labor exploitation in American agriculture has indicated that the rate of exploitation has increased more than seven times from 1949 to 1968. Exploitation is defined in a relative sense as a declining of the income share of workers relative to that of capitalists. Labor is defined to include both hired and family workers. While exploitation of hired labor may appear as a familiar notion, the idea is advanced that family labor may have been exploited also.

Approximate Distribution of Parameters in a Distributed Lag Model

Abstract In the construction of econometric models, the need frequently arises to test the significance of coefficients whose distribution is a ratio of two normal random variables for which no statistical tables exist. In this article the distribution of such a ratio, emanating from a partial adjustment model, is empirically approximated by utilizing Monte Carlo experiments with various sample sizes. The results indicate that the standardized distribution of the ratio is positively skewed and does not closely approximate the z-distribution. On the basis of the empirical distribution obtained, critical values for various levels of significances and sample sizes are reported.