The purpose of this article is to provide a deeper empirical insight into the structural change of an industry which is more relevant than that obtained by an analysis based on the traditionally estimated average production function. The main contribution is a long run analysis of technical progress and structural change by means of the short run industry production function introduced by Johansen [13], and based on micro data for individual production units. For that purpose we have developed Johansen’s approach into an operational framework for discrete capacity distributions including a special algorithm for the computation of the short-run industry production function. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Technical change in general milk processing is estimated within a homothetic frontier production function allowing neutrally variable scale elasticity. The results show that technical progress is characterized by a rapid increase in optimal scale and a small capital saving bias, increasing the marginal productivity of labour relative to capital. To characterize technical change, Salter's measures of bias and technical advance are utilized and interpreted within the framework of the efficiency cancepts of Farrell.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)