Comparison of Genetic Algorithm and Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag Method in Estimating Production Function of Iranian Agriculture

Several studies have estimated production function in agriculture. Most of them have used econometric methods. Recently, the heuristic algorithms have been widely in optimization problems. In this study, genetic algorithm (GA) model has been compared with a Auto regressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to estimate the production function in agriculture. Time series data of value added, labor, energy and capital agriculture sector was used of 1978-2008. Comparing the results of two methods based on two criteria of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Coefficient of Determination (R2), indicated that the genetic algorithm is more efficient than the ARDL approach