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What is Economic Cost
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Economic cost is the sum of all explicit and implicit (opportunity) costs of the business firm.
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Take note:
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All of the resources that a firm uses - whether purchase from outside or already owned - have opportunity cost and thus economic costs.
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What are Explicit Costs?
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the monetary payments it make to those from whom it must purchase resources that it does not own. (These are Opportunity Costs)
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What are Implicit Costs?
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the Opportunity Costs of using the resources that it already owns to make the firms' own product rather than selling those resources to outsiders for cash.
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A firms economic costs are:
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The sum of it's explicit costs and it's implicit costs.
Economic costs = explicit costs + implicit costs
Economic costs = explicit costs + implicit costs
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What is the Accounting Profit
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Subtracting total explicit costs from total sales revenue.
Accounting Profit = Sales Revenue - Explicit Costs
Accounting Profit = Sales Revenue - Explicit Costs
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How do you know if you have made a financially sound decisions when starting a new business?
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By taking into account all the opportunity costs - both implicit costs as well as explicit costs and subtracting it from total sales revenue.
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What is Economic Profit?
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After subtracting implicit costs from accounting profit you are left with economic profit.
Economic Profit = Revenue - Explicit Costs - Implicit Costs
Economic Profit = Revenue - Explicit Costs - Implicit Costs
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What does Economic Profit of $24,000 means?
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It means you are making $24,000 more than you could expect to make in your best alternative business venture.
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In Microeconomics what is the 'Short Run: Fixed Plant'?
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it is a period too brief for a firm to alter its plant capacity, yet long enough to permit a change in the degree to which the plant's current capacity is used.
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In Microeconomics what is the 'Long Run: Variable Plant'?
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it is a period long enough for it to adjust the quantities of all the resources that it employs, including plant capacity.
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Explicit Costs are:
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money payments a firm makes to outside suppliers for resources.
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Implicit Costs are
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the opportunity costs associated with a firm's use of resources it owns.
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Normal Profit is:
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the implicit cost of entrepreneurship
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Economic profit is:
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total revenue less all explicit and implicit costs, including normal profit.
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T/F In the short run, a firm's plant capacity is fixed.
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TRUE
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T/F In the long run, a firm can not vary it's plant size and firms can enter or leave the industry.
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FALSE
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Total Product (TP) is:
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The total quantity, or total output, of a particular good or service produced.
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Marginal Product (MP) is:
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the extra output or added product associated with adding a unit of variable resource, in this case labor, to the production process. Thus, Marginal product = change in total product / change in labor input.
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Average Product (AP) is:
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also called labor productivity, is output per unit of labor input: Average product = total product / units of labor
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What is the Law of Diminishing Returns?
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This law assumes that technology is fixed and thus the techniques of production do not change.
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What does the Law of Diminishing Returns indicate?
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That beyond some point, output will increase by diminishing amounts as more units of a variable resource (labor) are added to fixed resource (capital).
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In the short run, what is the Total Cost of any level of output?
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The Sum of fixed and variable costs (TC = TFC +TVC)
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What are the Fixed, Variable, and total costs per unit of output?
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Average fixed, average variable, and average total costs.
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What is Marginal Cost?
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It is the extra cost of producing one more unit of output.
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Average fixed cost do what as output increases?
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Decline
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How to the Average-Variable-Cost and Average-Total-Cost look on a graph?
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They are U-Shaped, reflecting increasing and then diminishing returns.
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What does the marginal-cost do on a charted graph?
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its curve falls but then rises, intersecting both the average-variable-cost curve and the average-total-cost curve at their minimum points.
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What do the U-shaped long-run average-total cost curves reflect?
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Economies and then diseconomies of sale.
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What are economies of scale?
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The consequence of greater specialization of labor and management, more efficient capital equipment, and the spreading of start-up costs over more units of output.
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What are diseconomies of scale caused by?
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The problems of coordination and the communication that arise in large firms.
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What are Minimum efficient scale (MES) of output?
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The lowest level at which a firm's long-run average total cost is at a minimum.
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What are 'Sunk Costs'?
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Cost that are incurred, that cannot be recovered.
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What are 'Fixed Costs'?
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Cost that do not vary with changes in output.
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What are 'Variable Costs'?
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A cost that in total increases when the firm increases its output and decreases when the firm reduces its output
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What is 'Total Cost'?
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It is the sum of fixed cost and variable cost at each level of output: TC = TFC + TVC
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What is the Average Total Cost? (ATC)
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A firm's total cost divided by output (the quantity of product produced); equal to average fixed cost plus average variable cost.
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What is the Average Variable Cost? (AVC)
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A firm's total variable cost divided by output (the quantity of product produced).
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What is Average Fixed Cost? (AFC)
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A firm's total fixed cost divided by output (the quantity of product produced).
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What are Constant Returns to Scale?
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Unchanging average total cost of producing a product as the firm expands the size of its plant (its output) in the long run.
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What are Natural Monopoly?
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An industry in which economies of scale are so great that a single firm can produce the product at a lower average total cost than would be possible if more than one firm produced the product.