This document provides answers to various questions related to Business Economics. It covers topics such as allocative efficiency, monopolistic competition, marginal cost, long run average cost, constant cost industry, increasing cost industry, market-based solutions to pollution externality, and profit maximization.
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Running head: BUSINESS ECONOMICS Business Economics Name of the Student Name of the University Student ID
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2BUSINESS ECONOMICS Answer 2 Answer a Allocative efficiency refers to the state of the economy where production takes place according to preference of consumers. In economic terms allocative efficiency is achieved when each good or service is produced till the point where marginal benefit to consumers from last unit of the good is equal to the marginal cost of producing the last unit. Allocative efficiency is achieved only under perfect competition. Because of zero market power of firms in the perfectly competitive market, firms are able to charge price that equal marginal cost of production. Because of large number of identical firms in the market selling a homogenous good, firms cannot charge price that exceeds marginal cost (Waldman and Jensen 2016). As price is used as a measure of marginal benefit, under perfect competition marginal benefit to society always equals marginal cost achieving allocative efficiency. Perfectly competitive market is therefore considered as a benchmark of allocative efficiency. Figure 1: Long run equilibrium and allocative efficiency under perfect competition
3BUSINESS ECONOMICS Answer b Monopolisticallycompetitivefirmsthoughhavesomesimilaritieswithperfect competition, the market fails to achieve allocative efficiency. Unlike perfect competition monopolistically competitive firms do not sell identical products rather they differentiate their product. This allows monopolistically competitive firms some degree of market power. Firms here maximize profit by equating marginal revenue and marginal cost. The demand curve for a monopolistically competitive market slopes downward (Belleflamme and Peitz 2015). Market price thus is greater than marginal cost as shown in the figure below. Corresponding to long run equilibrium point, society suffers a net welfare loss (loss in consumer and producer surplus) making the production allocative inefficient. Figure 2: Long run equilibrium and allocative inefficiency under monopolistic competition
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4BUSINESS ECONOMICS Answer 3 Answer a In the production process, marginal cost indicates the additional cost to produce one additional unit of a good or service. Marginal product is the additional production resulted from adding one extra unit of variable factor. The shape of marginal product and marginal cost curves are mirror image to each other showing close association between the two. Quantity of output corresponding to which marginal cost in minimum is the same point where the output produced by the variable input is associated with the maximum point of marginal product of the inputs (Shepherd 2015). The range of production over which marginal product increase, the variable input constitutes an increasing marginal return indicating a falling marginal cost. For the range of production for which marginal product increases, the variable input constitutes a decreasing marginal returns indicating rising marginal cost. Varying return to scale associated with various level of production.
5BUSINESS ECONOMICS Figure 3: Marginal cost and marginal product Answer b The long run average cost curve is determined from the group of short run average cost curves. LAC indicates the lowest possible cost for various unit of output. For deriving long run average cost, suppose the firm operates three different size plants. The respective short run average cost curves are represented by SAC1, SAC2and SAC3. Figure 4: Short run average cost with different plant size Firm in the long run will chose the plant that produce the targeted output at least possible cost. SAC1 will be chosen if the firm wants to produce OQ1level of output. SAC2 and SAC3 will be chosen for respective output levels of OQ2and OQ3.In the long run, as there are considerably large number of plants, a smooth LAC curve is derived from the short run average cost (Baumol and Blinder 2015).
6BUSINESS ECONOMICS Figure 5: Long run average cost curve Answer c As shown from the above figure, LAC curve is the envelope of short run average costs. In the falling part of LAC, SACs are tangent to LAC at their falling part. At the minimum point of LAC, LAC (min) = SAC (min). At the rising part of LAC, SACs are tangent LAC at their rising part (Cowen and Tabarrok 2015). Answer 5 Constant cost industry and horizontal supply curve Figure 6: Long run supply curve under constant cost industry
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7BUSINESS ECONOMICS Constant cost industry is defined as the one where contraction or expansion of the industry does not lead to any change in cost of employed factors. Figure 6 shows long run industry equilibrium under condition of constant cost. Panel (a) presents equilibrium of a firm and panel (b) presents overall industry equilibrium. The initial equilibrium in the industry occurs at point M. Suppose, there is an increase in demand shown by rightward shift of the demand curve. Higher demand increases price to OP1resulting in a supernormal profit for the existing firms in the industry. New firms then enter the market raising the demand for resources. Because of constant cost industry, entry of firms has no impact on LAC or LMC (Cowell 2018). With entry of new firms, profit gradually disappears and industry supply increases pushing the market price back to OP. The new equilibrium is at N. Joining M and N yields horizontal industry supply curve. Increasing cost industry and upward rising supply curve Figure 7: Long run supply curve under increasing cost industry Under condition of increasing cost industry, firms experience a rising cost with expansion of the industry. The equilibrium of individual firm and industry under increasing cost industry is shown in the above figure. With increase in demand and resulted supernormal
8BUSINESS ECONOMICS profit new firms enter the industry. As a result, resource demand increases causing input price to increase (increasing cost industry) (Mankiw 2014). This shift the cost curves upward. Because of increased cost firms’ supply do not extend that much as in case of constant cost industry. The supply curve shifts rightward to S1S1.OQ1quantity is now supplied at price OP2.Joining M and new equilibrium N gives an upward sloping industry supply curve. Answer 6 Market based solution to pollution externality Pollution is a form of negative externality producing socially inefficient outcome. Two market based approach to solve the problem of pollution externality are tax and tradeable pollution permits. Tax For production activities creating pollution, marginal social cost exceeds the marginal private cost. This results in over production of the particular good. In order to internalize the externality a tax should be imposed equivalent to the external cost. Taxing polluting activities is a market based approach that estimates maximum costs for controlling measures (Friedman 2017). The provides polluters an incentive to lower pollution at a cheaper rate than tax. The quantity of pollution depends on the tax rate.
9BUSINESS ECONOMICS Figure 8: Effect of tax on pollution externality Tradeable pollution permits The market based approach of transferable pollution permit fixes a maximum limit of pollution or a cap. The selected level of pollution is likely to be achieved at a relatively lower cost than other measures. If firms produce lower than set limit then firms can sell the permits. Those who produces more pollution buy the permits (Laffont 2017). The exchange of pollution permits creates a market for tradeable pollution permits where demand and supply set price of permits. Figure 9: Effect of tradeable pollution permits on pollution externality
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10BUSINESS ECONOMICS Answer 8 Answer a In order to the maximize profit at price $8 per unit, the firm will produce 70 units of output. Answer b The average cost of production at this output is $6. Answer c Profit=Totalrevenue−Totalcost ¿($8×70)−($6×70) ¿$560−$420 ¿$140 It will make a supernormal profit of $140. Answer d In order to maximize profit at $5, firm will produce 50 units of output. Answer eProfit=Totalrevenue−Totalcost ¿($5×50)−($5×50) ¿$250−$250 ¿0 No supernormal profit will be earned. Firms earn only normal profit at this level. Answer f
11BUSINESS ECONOMICS In order to maximize profit at $4, firm will produce 40 units of output. Answer g Profit=Totalrevenue−Totalcost ¿($4×40)−($5.5×40) ¿$160−$220 ¿−$60 As price is below the average cost firm earns no profit. Rather it suffers a loss of $60. Answer h Shut down point in the short run is at minimum of average variable cost. In the short run, firm should shut down at price below $3.5. Answer i Shut down point in the long run is at minimum of average cost (Cowell 2018). In the long run, firm should shut down at price below $5.
12BUSINESS ECONOMICS References Baumol, W.J. and Blinder, A.S., 2015.Microeconomics: Principles and policy. Nelson Education. Belleflamme,P.andPeitz,M.,2015.Industrialorganization:marketsandstrategies. Cambridge University Press. Cowell, F., 2018.Microeconomics: principles and analysis. Oxford University Press. Cowen,T.andTabarrok,A.,2015.Modernprinciplesofmicroeconomics.Macmillan International Higher Education. Friedman, L.S., 2017.The microeconomics of public policy analysis. Princeton University Press. Laffont, J.J., 2017. Externalities.The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, pp.1-4. Mankiw, N.G., 2014.Principles of economics. Cengage Learning. Needham, K., de Vries, F.P., Armsworth, P.R. and Hanley, N., 2019. Designing markets for biodiversity offsets: Lessons from tradable pollution permits.Journal of Applied Ecology. Shepherd, R.W., 2015.Theory of cost and production functions. Princeton University Press. Waldman, D. and Jensen, E., 2016.Industrial organization: theory and practice. Routledge.