In: Economics
You are the producer of ice-cold drinks. The more you produce, the more it costs you to produce. Below is your production schedule. Cost to produce one bottle $1 Cost to produce a second bottle $3 Cost to produce a third bottle $5 Cost to produce 1 fourth bottle $7
a) If the price of an ice-cold drink is $2, how many bottles would be produced and consumed, and what is the total surplus?
b) If the price of an ice-cold drink is $4, how many bottles would be produced and consumed, and what is the total surplus?
c) If the price of an ice-cold drink is $6, how many bottles would be produced and consumed, and what is the total surplus?
The production and cost schedule is given as follows,
Production Cost
1 $1
2 $3
3 $5
4 $7
a. When the price of ice-cold drink is $2 then as you can see we shouldn't produce more than 1 bottle since the cost of producing 1 bottle is $1 and the second bottle is $3 which is higher than price. And producing more than 1 bottle at a price of $2 would result in loss.
And total surplus will be equal to,
=( price × quantity - cost)
= 2 × 1 - 1 = $1
b. If the price of ice-cold drink is $4 then we shouldn't produce more than 2 bottles since producing 3rd bottle would cost us $5 which is more than $4 which will result in a loss.
So we should produce 2 bottles.
And the total surplus will be equal to,
= price×quantity - cost
= the cost of producing 2 bottles will be equal to $4 ($1 + $3).
And since the price of 1 bottle is $4 then selling two bottles will result in $4×2 = $8
Surplus = $8 - $4 = $4.
C. If the price of ice-cold drink is $6 then we shouldn't produce more than 3 bottles since producing 4th bottle will cost $7 and the price is only $6 which means producing 4th bottle will result in a loss.
So we should produce 3 bottles.
And the total surplus will be equal to,
= price × quantity - cost
The total cost of producing 3 bottles will be equal to,
= $1 + $3 + $5
= $9
And since the price is equal to $6 and we selling 3 bottles,
= price × quantity
= $6 × 3
= $18
Surplus = $18 - $9 = $9
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