How to read this
In 1935 Ragnar Frisch recorded how many kilos of nut chocolate the Freia factory got from two inputs: , moulding and cooling work, and , cocoa fat, both valued in kroner. Each cell of the table is one point of a real production function.
- Click a cell. Along a row only cocoa fat changes, so the differences are marginal products.
- Cells on the same ray from the origin show the returns to scale.
- The isoquant plot redraws Frisch's own figure.
Kilos of nut chocolate
Rows: work (kr). Columns: cocoa fat (kr). Source: Frisch (1935), Table 5a.8, as reproduced in the notes.
Show
Output over the input plane
the 16 cells of the table on the surface through them; the translucent grey surface is the fitted Cobb-Douglas, extended beyond the data like Frisch's isoquants. The row and column through the selected cell are the one-input curves.
Isoquants in the factor diagram
isoquants through the data (400 to 900 kg, inside the measured rectangle) and fitted Cobb-Douglas isoquants at Frisch's levels 250, 500, 750 and 1000 kg. Rays join cells with the same input mix.
Adding cocoa fat, work fixed
Selected cell
Returns to scale in the table
Arc elasticity of scale between two cells on one ray: . Close to 1: roughly constant returns.