Perhaps the most common form of production function in economics, the Cobb–Douglas function has a range of attractive properties. The input demand and supply of output functions have the property of continuous differentiability everywhere on their respective domains; and the form has a function coefficient that is identical to its degree of homogeneity, calculated by summing the factor production elasticities. Its restrictions have made it an object of disdain for some. But the Cobb–Douglas form is remarkably robust in a vast variety of applications and is therefore very likely to endure.
This chapter was originally published in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition, 2008. Edited by Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume
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