1. In 1986, Scott Stillinger developed the Koosh ball and founded OddzOn Products, Inc. to sell...

1. In 1986, Scott Stillinger developed the Koosh ball and founded OddzOn Products, Inc. to sell the toy. Assume that the Koosh ball production function is: Q = L*(32-L) Which would make the marginal product of labor equal to: MPL = 32-2L The minimum wage is $7.25 and the price of a Koosh ball is $3.50. a. If Stillinger is a profit-maximizing employer, how many workers will he hire? Show your work and briefly explain why this is the optimal number of workers.

b. Assume that in the long run Stillinger begins employing more capital. If the price of capital is cheaper than workers, what will happen to labor demand? Briefly explain using scale and substitution effects.

Solutions

Expert Solution

Answer.b In the long run, firms maximize profit by choosing the optimal combination of labor and capital to produce a given amount of output. It’s possible that an automobile company could manufacture 1,000 cars using only expensive, technologically advanced robots and machinery (capital) that do not require any human participation. It’s also possible that the company could produce the same number of vehicles using only employee work (labor), without any assistance from machines or technology.

Firms use the marginal decision rule in order to decide what combination of labor, capital, and other factors of production to use in the creation of output. The marginal decision rule says that a firm will shift spending among factors of production as long as the marginal benefit of such a shift exceeds the marginal cost. Imagine that a firm must decide whether to spend an additional dollar on labor. To determine the marginal benefit of that dollar, we divide the marginal product of labor (MP_L) by it’s price (the wage rate, P_L): MP_L/P_L. If capital and labor are the only factors of production, then spending an additional $1 on labor while holding the total cost constant means taking $1 out of capital. The cost of that action will be the output lost from cutting back on capital, which is the ratio of the marginal product of capital (MP_K) to the price of capital (the rental rate, P_K). Thus, the cost of cutting back on capital is MP_K/P_K.

Rahul Sunny answered 1 year ago

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