Australian coal mining: Estimating technical change and resource rents in a translog cost function

Azzalini, Paul; Bloch, Harry; Haslehurst, Paula

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Authors

Azzalini, Paul

Bloch, Harry

Haslehurst, Paula

Date

2007

Type

Conference Paper

Metadata

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Citation

Azzalini, Paul and Bloch, Harry and Haslehurst, Paula. 2007. Australian coal mining: Estimating technical change and resource rents in a translog cost function, in School of Economics and Finance, Victoria University (ed), 30th Conference of the International Association for Energy Economics, Feb 18 2007. Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand: Oceania Association for Energy Economics.

Source Title

Conference Proceedings of the 30th Conference of the International Association for Energy Economics

Source Conference

30th Conference of the International Association for Energy Economics

Faculty

Curtin Business School

School of Economics and Finance

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/47648

Collection

Curtin Research Publications

Abstract

This paper estimates a translog cost function for the Australian coal industry from 1968/69 to 2004/05. We use a variable measuring the shift to open-pit mining to capture the impact of embodied technical change, while using a time trend to capture the impact of other technical change and changing resource rents. The cost function is estimated with Zellner's SUR procedure. The shift to open-cut mining is shown to be important in lowering cost during the 1970s and 1980s, but more recently cost reduction is captured by the time trend.