The Singular Value Decomposition of a Technology Matrix

This paper is the first application of the singular value decomposition in general equilibrium theory. Every technology matrix can be decomposed into three parts: (1) a definition of composite commodities; (2) a definition of composite factors; and (3) a simple map of composite factor prices into composite goods prices. This technique gives an orthogonal decomposition of the price space into two complementary subspaces: (1) vectors that generate the price cone; and (2) a basis that describe the flats on the production possibility frontier. This decomposition can be used easily to compute Rybczynski effects.