CAPITAL-LABOR RATIO IN UKRAINE’S MACHINE BUILDING: REALITY AND OPTIMALITY

Abstract

The article examines the situation of appearance of a non-optimal capital-labor ratio on the basis of a comparison of the relative speed of the dynamics of indicators of labor productivity, capital productivity and capital-labor ratio in machine building industry of Ukraine in recent years. Mathematical determination of the optimal capital-labor ratio is substantiated on the basis of production functions taking into account dynamics of the most important indicators of economic activity, presented in value terms. Methodological and applied aspects of the use of the equimarginal principle from microeconomics are discussed to determine the optimal capital-labor ratio within the limits of substitutional production functions. It is proved that at the point of optimal capital-labor ratio, the marginal rate of replacement of production factors’ substitution is equal to one. The resulting conclusion is used as a basis for development of a procedure for finding optimum capital-labor ratio using econometric models, which adequately describe the relationship of time series of product sales, basic productive assets and labor costs based on substitutional production functions. The use of the proposed procedure for determining the optimal capital-labor ratio is carried out on the example of the Cobb-Douglas-Tinbergen production function, the dynamised CES-function and the linear function. The methodological recommendations on calculation of unknown parameters are presented for these functions, as well as the formulas of optimal capital-labor ratio with indicated extreme values of products sold and the total costs for basic production assets and labor payment. The obtained theoretical results are tested according to the data of Ukraine’s machine building. The hypothesis about non-optimal capital-labor ratio in 2007-2015 is confirmed in terms of volumes of sales of the industry production. It turns out that for the analyzed period of time, the basic production assets of machine building were relatively abundant compared with the payment of labor. In 2016-2017, a positive trend begins in dynamics of the capital-labor ratio in the industry to a certain reduction and a gradual approach to the optimal value.