ECON 2105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Marginal Cost, Opportunity Cost, Comparative Advantage

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7 Sep 2015

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Decision-making key: minimize opportunity cost by selecting the option that has the largest benefit, go to whichever you enjoy more, the pool or mall: marginal thinking, economic thinking. Requires a purposeful evaluation of available opportunities to make the best decision: marginal thinking. Go to college if marginal benefits are greater than marginal cost: trade creates value, markets. Bring buyers and sellers together to exchange goods and services: trade. The voluntary exchange of goods and services between two or more parties. You don"t engage in trade if it makes you worst off. Comparative: without trade, you would have to produce everything you consume. Comparative advantage: the situation in which an individual, business, or country can produce at a lower opportunity cost than a competitor, allows gains from trade to occur. India or china may have a comparative advantage (relative to usa) in labor-intensive goods. Economists ask, and answer, big questions about life.

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Marginal Benefit. List and explain at least one example where you actually have used or will use the marginal principle in your life (personal or professional). Here is an example of how I used this principle. I considered pursuing my doctorate degree. Having a doctorate would increase my salary here at Ohlone College. However, obtaining the doctorate has costs associated with it. When I looked at the marginal cost of getting one more degree with the marginal benefit of one more degree, I calculated that the marginal benefit was higher than the marginal cost, so I chose to go on for my doctorate.

NOTE: Do not use the example of pursuing a college degree, since I just covered that one. Come up with a different example.

IMPORTANT: The marginal principle applies to purchasing MORE of something you already have. In my example, I already have two college degrees. The decision is about whether to obtain another degree. Do not give an example of deciding whether or not to buy something you do not have. For example, deciding to buy a car if you do not already have one is not an example of marginal cost. That is an example of opportunity cost.

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One often-used definition of the term opportunity cost is that it is something that is given up when a choice is made. An example would be the money from working full-time given up by going to school. I suggest using the definition that opportunity cost is in terms of the foregone benefits of the next best alternative that could have been chosen. If the choice is for going to school instead of working full-time, then the opportunity cost would be all the benefits you would enjoy from working full-time in addition to the income you would earn. Using examples from your experiences and what you know, in what manners does the suggested change in definitions offer advantages in evaluating potential outcomes of choices either you or society have to make? How does this second opportunity cost definition help you make better decisions?

1. the marginal cost curve is

A. Downward sloping to reflect the bowed out PPF.

B. Downward sloping as marginal benefits increase.

C. Upward sloping because marginal cost falls as more of a good or service is produced.

D. Upward sloping to reflect the increasing opportunity cost of producing one more unit.

E. U-shaped to reflect the bowed out PPF.

2. Allocative efficiency occurs

A. Anywhere inside or on the production possibilities frontier.

B. When the total cost of production is minimized

C. At all points on the production possibilities frontier.

D. At only one point on the production possibilities frontier.

E. At the points where the production possibilities frontier crosses the horizontal or vertical axis.

3. Auditors working for a large accounting firm are often away from the office. When they are in the office, they are allowed to use any desk that is available. Which method is used to allocate desks?

A. lottery

B. first-come, first-served

C. Command

D. Contest

E. Sharing equally

4. The marginal cost of a good or service

A. Can be calculated from the marginal benefit of that good or service.

B. decreases as more of the good or service is produced.

C. Can be derived from the production possibilities frontier.

D. Graphs as a positively sloped curve, so it cannot be derived from the production possibilities frontier, which is downward sloping.

E. None of the above answers is correct.

5. The maximum amount of other goods and services that people are willing to give up in order to get one more unit of a good is defined as the good's

A. Marginal benefit.

B. Total benefit.

C. Marginal cost

D. Total cost.

E. Price.

ECON 2105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Marginal Cost, Opportunity Cost, Comparative Advantage

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