Skip to main content

Suppose that the marginal product of the last worker employed by a firm is 40 units of output per day and the daily wage that the firm must pay is...

If you are maximizing output for fixed cost or minimizing cost for fixed output (there is a duality that makes these two optimization problems equivalent), the price you pay for a given amount of marginal product will be the same. So if they were maximizing profit, they would be paying the same rate for marginal product of capital as for marginal product of labor.

I can prove this using a Lagrangian; I will as a sort of "appendix" below. If that's too advanced for what you're familiar with, just don't worry about that appendix and take it as given that price of marginal product should be equal for maximizing profit.

But they are not; they have too much labor, not enough capital.

Since their marginal product of labor is 40 units per day, for which they are paying a wage w of $20 per day, this is how much they're paying for marginal product of labor:

w/MPL = 20/40 = $0.50 per unit

Since their marginal product of capital is 120 units per day, for which they are paying rent r of $30 per day, this is how much they're paying for marginal product of capital:

r/MPK = 30/120 = $0.25 per unit

Appendix:

For output function f(K,L) of products sold at price P, we are maximizing profit PF. We pay rent r on capital and wage w for labor; thus our constraint is r K + w L = C where C is a constant, how much money we have to spend. (Its precise value won't matter for the theorem, so long as it is a constant.)

PF = P * f(K,L) + lambda (rK + wL - C)

dPF/dK = 0 = P * f_K + lambda r
dPF/dL = 0 = P * f_L + lambda w

Solve for lambda in each case:
lambda = - P * f_K / r = - P * f_L / w
f_K / r = f_L / w
r/f_K = w/f_L
where the partial derivatives f_K and f_L are just the marginal products of capital and labor respectively.
r/MPK = w/MPL.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What is the meaning of "juggling fiends" in Macbeth?

Macbeth is beginning to realize that the three witches have been deceiving him since he first encountered them. Like jugglers, they have kept changing their forecasts in order create confusion. This is particularly apparent when the Second Apparition they raise in Act IV,   Scene 1 tells him that no man of woman born can overcome him in hand-to-hand battle--and then Macbeth finds himself confronted by the one man he has been avoiding out of a... Macbeth is beginning to realize that the three witches have been deceiving him since he first encountered them. Like jugglers, they have kept changing their forecasts in order create confusion. This is particularly apparent when the Second Apparition they raise in Act IV,   Scene 1 tells him that no man of woman born can overcome him in hand-to-hand battle--and then Macbeth finds himself confronted by the one man he has been avoiding out of a sense of guilt, and that man tells him: Despair thy charm. And let the angel whom thou still hast serve...

What are some external and internal conflicts that Montag has in Fahrenheit 451?

 Montag, the protagonist of Fahrenheit 451, faces both external and internal conflicts throughout the novel. Some examples of these conflicts are: External Conflicts: Conflict with the society: Montag lives in a society that prohibits books and critical thinking. He faces opposition from the government and the people who enforce this law. Montag struggles to come to terms with the fact that his society is based on censorship and control. Conflict with his wife: Montag's wife, Mildred, is completely absorbed in the shallow and meaningless entertainment provided by the government. Montag's growing dissatisfaction with his marriage adds to his external conflict. Conflict with the fire captain: Montag's superior, Captain Beatty, is the personification of the oppressive regime that Montag is fighting against. Montag's struggle against Beatty represents his external conflict with the government. Internal Conflicts: Conflict with his own beliefs: Montag, at the beginning of th...

In A People's History of the United States, why does Howard Zinn feel that Wilson made a flimsy argument for entering World War I?

"War is the health of the state," the radical writer Randolph Bourne said, in the midst of the First World War. Indeed, as the nations of Europe went to war in 1914, the governments flourished, patriotism bloomed, class struggle was stilled, and young men died in frightful numbers on the battlefields-often for a hundred yards of land, a line of trenches. -- Chapter 14, Page 350, A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn outlines his arguments for why World War I was fought in the opening paragraph of Chapter 14 (referenced above). The nationalism that was created by the Great War benefited the elite political and financial leadership of the various countries involved. Socialism, which was gaining momentum in Europe, as was class struggle, took a backseat to mobilizing for war. Zinn believes that World War I was fought for the gain of the industrial capitalists of Europe in a competition for capital and resources. He states that humanity itself was punished by t...