An Analysis of Cotton Production Technology on the Harran Plain

In this research, it was aimed to determine effects of three production factors; labor, capital, and land, on the current level of cotton output produced by a sample of local cotton farmers operating on the Harran Plain in Turkey and whether this relation may be used to assess the returns-to-scale parameter, also known as the function coefficient in the production economics literature. Regression results led us to conclude that among these variables, farm size is found the most influential variable determining cotton output, followed by the variables representing capital and labor as the second and third influential, respectively. In addition, results demonstrated that the returns-to-scale parameter calculated for this sample is significantly greater than unity suggesting that cotton production technology in this region exhibits increasing returns to scale, assuming linear technology.