Two men jointly lift heavy cargo into
trucks. Solely by observing the total
weight loaded per day, it is impossible to
determine each person's marginal productivity.
With team production it is
difficult, solely by observing total output,
to either define or determine each individual's
contribution to this output of the
cooperating inputs. The output is yielded
by a team, by definition, and it is not a
sum of separable outputs of each of its
members. Team production of Z involves
at least two inputs, Xi and Xj, with
a2Z1aXiaXj3X,0.3 The production function
is not separable into two functions
each involving only inputs Xi or only inputs
Xi. Consequently there is no sum
of Z of two separable functions to treat
as the Z of the team production function.
(An example of a separable case is Z= aX'
+bXj' which is separable into Zi= aX' and
Zj= bX%, and Z= Zi+Zj. This is not team
production.) There exist production techniques
in which the Z obtained is greater
than if Xi and Xj had produced separable
Z. Team production will be used if it
yields an output enough larger than the
sum of separable production of Z to cover
the costs of organizing and disciplining
team members-the topics of this paper