Question

Suppose you are a discus hurler and your goal is to maximize the distance you achieve. You "produce" discus hurls by practicing. The total benefit of practice is distance achieved, and the input that achieves this distance is hours of practice. Describe the total benefit curve of practice. What point on the curve would you select?

Answer 1

More hours you put in practice, greater distance will be achieved by you as a discus hurler. Hence the total benefit measured by distance achieved will be a upward sloping curve in hours of practice where x axis will have hours of practice and y axis will have distance achieved.

One selects a point on the curve where benefit is maximised. This will be the point where marginal benefit curve equals the price of input i.e hours of practice. This price could be the opportunity cost of putting an extra hour into practice. In the diagram, total benefit curve is increasing at an increasing rate and marginal benefit curve is increasing. Equilibrium will be achieved at point A.