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In economics, a firm that faces no competitors is referred to as ______________
answer
a monopoly
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___________________ arises where many firms are competing in a market to sell similar but differentiated products.
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Monopolistic competition
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A firm's ___________ consist of expenditures that must be made before production starts that typically, over the short run, _______________ regardless of the level of production.
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fixed costs; do not change,
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__________ include all of the costs of production that increase with the quantity produced.
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Variable costs
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____________________ occur when the marginal gain in output diminishes as each additional unit of input is added.
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Diminishing marginal returns
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In order to determine ____________, the firm's total costs must be divided by the quantity of its output.
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average cost
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In order to determine the average variable cost, the firm's variable costs are divided by _______
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he quantity of output
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The term _____________ is used to describe the additional cost of producing one more unit.
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marginal cost
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In order to reduce the harmful affects of recession and carbon emissions, the government provided tax
incentives for manufacturing firm's to ___________________ that provide alternative, more efficient methods of combining inputs to produce output.
incentives for manufacturing firm's to ___________________ that provide alternative, more efficient methods of combining inputs to produce output.
answer
acquire energy efficient production technologies
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The term __________________ describes a situation where the quantity of output rises, but the average cost of production falls.
answer
economies of scale
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In microeconomics, the term _____________________ is synonymous with economies of scale.
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increasing returns to scale
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The term "constant returns to scale" describes a situation where
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expanding all inputs does not change the average cost of production.
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In microeconomics, the term ___________________ is synonymous with decreasing returns of scale.
answer
diseconomies of scale
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If a firm is experiencing _____________________, then as the quantity of output rises, the average cost of production rises.
answer
decreasing returns to scale
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In the US economy, nearly half of all the workers employed by private firms work at
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18,000 large firms that employ more than 500 workers.
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________ is calculated by taking the quantity of everything that is sold and multiplying it by the
sale price.
sale price.
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Total revenue
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______ include all spending on labor, machinery, tools, and supplies purchased from other firms.
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Total costs
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Approximately what percentage of the US labor force is employed by firms that have fewer than 100 employees?
answer
35%
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According to the definition of profit, if a profit-maximizing firm will always attempt to produce its
desired level of output at the lowest possible cost, then it will
desired level of output at the lowest possible cost, then it will
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do so regardless of what type of competition exists in a market.
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The ______________ of all firms can be broken down into some common underlying patterns.
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cost structure
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If a solar panel manufacturer wants to look at its total costs of production in the short run, which of the following would provide a useful starting point?
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divide total costs into two categories: fixed costs that can't be changed in the short run and variable costs that can be
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Which of the following falls outside of the classification of business expenses that fall into the category of fixed costs?
answer
costs incurred in the act of producing
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Which of the following falls outside of the classification of business expenditures that fall into the
category of variable costs?
category of variable costs?
answer
costs of research and development
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Why would labor be treated as a variable cost?
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producing larger quantities of a good or service generally requires more workers
question
I'MaPizzaCo. produces and sells specialty pizzas. Last year, it produced 8,000 mushroom, sausage an spinach pizzas and sold each one for $8. To produce these 8,000 specialty pizzas, the company incurred variable costs of $24,000 and a total cost of $40,000. I'MaPizzaCo's average fixed cost to produce 8,000 specialty pizzas was
answer
$2.00
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I'MaGadgetCo. produces and sells widgets. Last year, it produced 9,000 widgets and sold each one for
$8. To produce the 9,000 widgets, the company incurred variable costs of $27,000 and a total cost of
$36,000. I'MaGadgetCo's average fixed cost to produce 9,000 widgets was
$8. To produce the 9,000 widgets, the company incurred variable costs of $27,000 and a total cost of
$36,000. I'MaGadgetCo's average fixed cost to produce 9,000 widgets was
answer
$1.00
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The marginal cost curve is generally ______________, because diminishing marginal returns implies that additional units are _____________
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upward-sloping; more costly to produce
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Whatever the firm's quantity of production, _____________ must exceed total costs if it is to earn a profit.
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total revenue
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Fixed costs are important because, at least in the ___________, the firm _________
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short run; cannot alter them
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The _____________________ curve will always lie below the curve for average cost because average cost includes _____________ in the numerator of the calculation.
answer
average variable cost; fixed costs
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In order to calculate marginal cost, the change in ______________ is divided by the amount of change in quantity.
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either total cost or variable cost
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Which of the following should typically be ignored because spending has already been made and cannot be changed?
answer
sunk costs
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_________ tells a firm whether it can earn profits given the price in the market.
answer
Average cost
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If a comparison between average cost and price reveals whether a firm is earning profits, then a
comparison between average variable cost and price reveals
comparison between average variable cost and price reveals
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whether the firm is earning profit if fixed costs are left out of the calculation.
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When __________________ exist, doubling of all inputs will result in more than doubling output, which means _____________________
answer
economies of scale; a larger factory can produce at a lower average cost than a smaller company.
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The economies-of-scale curve is a long-run average cost curve, because
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it allows all factors of production to change.
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A situation known as _____________________ occurs when all production inputs are allowed to expand, but that expansion does not result in much of a change in the average cost of production.
answer
constant returns to scale
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________________ help to explain why every economy, as it develops, has an increasing proportion of its population living in urban areas.
answer
Agglomeration factors
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Economies of scale may arise from all but one of the following. Which one is it?
answer
government economic subsidies protect firms from competition to avoid losses
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The future of cities in the United States and in other countries will be determined by their ability to benefit from the _________________ and to minimize or counterbalance the ___________
answer
economies of agglomeration; corresponding diseconomies