HPU ECO2030 Principals of Microeconomics - Homework 5
Assume that in the short run a firm is producing 100 units of output, has average total costs of $200, and has average variable costs of $150. The firm's total fixed costs are
$5,000.
The average fixed cost of producing 3 units of output is
$8.
What do wages paid to factory workers, interest paid on a bank loan, forgone interest, and the purchase of component parts have in common?
All are opportunity costs.
If a firm's revenues just cover all its implicit costs, then
normal profit is zero.
The short-run average total cost curve is U-shaped because
of increasing and diminishing returns.
Diseconomies of scale arise primarily because
of the difficulties involved in managing and coordinating a large business enterprise.
Which of the following is most likely to be a fixed cost?
property insurance premiums
The long run is characterized by
the ability of the firm to change all its resources, viz. plant size.
Refer to the diagram. The vertical distance between ATC and AVC reflects
the average fixed cost at each level of output.
The basic characteristic of the short run is that
the firm does not have sufficient time to change the size of its plant.
If a firm doubles its output in the long run and its unit costs of production decline, we can conclude that
the firm experiences economies of scale.
Marginal cost is the
change in total cost that results from producing one more unit of output.
Refer to the graph. A decrease in fixed costs is shown by
the shift of the short-run average total cost curve from ATC2 to ATC1.
Fixed costs are associated with
the short run only.
Diminishing marginal returns become evident with the addition of the
third worker.
Suppose that, when producing 10 units of output, a firm's AVC is $22, its AFC is $5, and its MC is $30. This firm's
total cost is $270.
Average product is at a maximum when
two workers are hired.
A natural monopoly exists when
unit costs are minimized by having one firm produce an industry's entire output.
Economies and diseconomies of scale explain
why the firm's long-run average total cost curve is U-shaped.
Average fixed cost
declines continually as output increases.
An industry is expected to expand if firms in the industry are earning positive
economic profits.
The ability of Intel to spread product development and other "start-up" costs over a larger number of units of output results in
economies of scale.
The diagram above shows the short-run average total cost (ATC) curves associated with different plant size. As the firm in the diagram expands from plant size #1 to plant size #3, it experiences
economies of scale.
The diagram above shows the short-run average total cost (ATC) curves associated with different plant size. As the firm in the diagram expands from plant size #3 to plant size #5, it experiences
economies of scale.
To the economist, total cost includes
explicit and implicit costs.
Cash expenditures a firm incurs to pay for resources are called
explicit costs.
Past costs that are not affected by new decisions are known as
fixed costs.
The short run is characterized by
fixed plant capacity.
Which of the following is most likely to be an implicit cost for Company X?
forgone rent from the building owned and used by Company X
Which of the following is most likely to be a variable cost?
fuel and power payments
To economists, the main difference between the short run and the long run is that
in the long run all resources are variable, while in the short run at least one resource is fixed.
The minimum efficient scale of a firm
is the smallest level of output at which long-run average total cost is minimized.
If a firm increases all of its inputs by 10 percent and its output increases by 10 percent, then
it is encountering constant returns to scale.
If a firm decides to produce no output in the short run, its costs will be
its fixed costs.
The first, second, and third workers employed by a firm add 24, 18, and 9 units to total product, respectively. Therefore, we can conclude that
marginal product of the third worker is 9.
In the long run,
all costs are variable costs.
Refer to the graph. Which one of the following would cause a move from point b on short-run average total cost curve ATC 1 to point e on short-run average cost curve ATC 2?
an increase in the wage rate
Fixed cost is
any cost that does not change when the firm changes its output.
The law of diminishing returns indicates that
as extra units of a variable resource are added to a fixed resource, marginal product will decline beyond some point.
If a technological advance increases a firm's labor productivity, we would expect its
average total cost curve to fall.
The total variable cost of producing 5 units is
61
The marginal cost of producing the sixth unit of output is
8
Suppose that a business incurred implicit costs of $200,000 and explicit costs of $1 million in a specific year. If the firm sold 4,000 units of its output at $300 per unit, its accounting profits were
$200,000 and its economic profits were $0.
The average total cost of producing 3 units of output is
$16.
Refer to the diagram. At output level Q, total cost is
0BEQ.
Refer to the diagram. At output level Q, total fixed cost is
0BEQ.
Refer to the diagram. At output level Q, total variable cost is
0BEQ.
The marginal product of the sixth worker is
15 Units
Assume a firm closes down in the short run and produces no output. Under these conditions,
TFC and TC are positive, but TVC is zero.
If you operated a small bakery, which of the following would be a variable cost in the short run?
baking supplies (flour, salt, etc.)
