Question

News reports from the western United States occasionally report incidents of cattle ranchers slaughtering many newborn calves and burying them in mass graves rather than transporting them to markets. Assuming that this is rational behavior by profit-maximizing "firms," explain what economic factors may influence such behavior. Justify your answer.

at least two paragraphs

Answer 1

A firm maximizes profit by operating where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. In the short run, a change in fixed costs has no effect on the profit maximizing output or price. The firm merely treats short term fixed costs as sunk costs and continues to operate as before.Profit maximisation is the process that companies undergo in order to determine the best output and price levels in order to achieve its goals.A firm is said to have reached equilibrium when it has no need to change its level of output, either an increase or decrease, in order to maximise profit.

If the selling price is not sufficient to cover the variable cost of sending the calves to market this behavior makes economic sense. In this case it is better to bury calves in graves then send them to market.

The intersection of the average variable cost curve and the marginal cost curve, which shows the price below which the firm would lack enough revenue to cover its variable costs, is called the shutdown point. If the perfectly competitive firm faces a market price above the shutdown point, then the firm is at least covering its average variable costs. At a price above the shutdown point, the firm is also making enough revenue to cover at least a portion of fixed costs, so it should limp ahead even if it is making losses in the short run, since at least those losses will be smaller than if the firm shuts down immediately and incurs a loss equal to total fixed costs. However, if the firm is receiving a price below the price at the shutdown point, then the firm is not even covering its variable costs. In this case, staying open is making the firm’s losses larger, and it should shut down immediately.