INTRODUCTION
The firm is an organisation that produces a good or service for sale and it plays a central role in theory and practice of Managerial Economics. In contrast to nonprofit institutions like the ‘Ford Foundation’, most firms attempt to make a profit. There are thousands of firms in India producing large amount of goods and services; the rest are produced by the government and non-profit institutions. It is obvious that a lot of activities of the Indian economy revolve around firms.One of the crucial determinants of a firm’s behaviour is the state of technology.Technology imposes a limit on how much a firm can produce. It is the sum total of society’s pool of knowledge concerning the industrial and agricultural arts. Production is any activity that transforms inputs into output and is applicable not only to the production of goods like steel and automobiles, but also to production of
services like banking and insurance.The firm changes hired inputs into saleable output. An input is defined as anything that the firm uses in its production process. Most firms require a wide array of inputs. For example, some of the inputs used by major steel firms like SAIL or TISCO are iron ore, coal, oxygen, skilled labour of various types, the services of blast furnaces, electric furnaces, and rolling mills as well as the services of the people managing the companies. To give another example, the inputs in production and sale of “chaat” by a street vendor are all the ingredients that go into making ofthe “chaat”, i.e. the stove, the “carrier”, and the services of the vendor. The inputs or the factors of production are divisible into two broad categories - human resources and capital resources. Labour resource and entrepreneurial resource are the two human resource inputs while land, man-made capital forests, rivers, etc. are the two capital resources. Thus the four major factors of production (FOP) are land, man made capital, labour, and entrepreneur (organisation) while the remuneration they get is rent, interest (capital rental), wage, and profit, respectively. The function of the firm, thus, is to purchase resources or inputs of labour services,capital and raw materials in order to convert them into goods and services for sale. There is a circular flow of economic activity between individuals and firms as they are highly interdependent. Labour has no value in the market unless there is a firm willing to pay for it. In the same way, firms cannot rationalise production unless some consumer is willing to buy their products. However, there is some incentive
for each. Firms earn profits inturn satisfying the consumption demand of individuals and resource owners get wage, rent and interest payment. In the process of supplying the goods and services that consumers demand, firms provide employment to workers and also pay taxes that government uses to provide service (education, defense) that firms could not provide at all or as efficiently.Essentially a firm exists because the total cost of production of output is lower than if the firm did not exist. There are several reasons for lower costs. Firstly, longterm contract with labour saves the transaction costs because no new contract has to be negotiated every time a labour is to be hired or given new assignment.Secondly, there are government regulations like price-control and sales taxes also saved by having the transaction within the firm. Recall that sales tax is levied for transaction between firms and not within firms. When transactions take place within a firm they may be cheaper and hence such savings decrease the total cost of production of an output. In other words, the existence of firms could be explained by the fact that it saves transaction costs.However, the size of the firm has to be limited because as the firms grow larger, a point is reached where the cost of internal transaction becomes equal to or greater than the cost of transaction between firms. When such a stage is reached, it puts a limit to the size of the firm. Further, the cost of supplying additional services like legal, medical etc. within the firm exceeds the cost of purchasing these services from other firms; as such services may be required occasionally.Let us consider the size of different kinds of firms around us and try to understand the reasons for such differences. Why are service firms generally smaller than
capital-intensive firms like SAIL, Maruti Udyog, and ONGC etc? What is the reason that a number of firms are choosing the BPO route? A part of the
explanation must lie in the fact that it is cheaper to outsource than to absorb that activity within the firm. Consider a firm that needs to occasionally use legal service.Under what conditions will it choose to hire a full time lawyer and take her on its rolls and under what conditions will the firm outsource the legal activity or hire legal services on a case-by-case basis. Naturally, the answer depends upon the frequency of use for legal services. The transaction cost framework demonstrates that the firm will contract out if the cost of such an arrangement is lower and will prefer in-house legal staff when the opposite is true.
Firms are classified into different categories as follows:
a) Private sector firms.
b) Public sector firms.
c) Joint sector firms.
d) Non-profit firms.
The firm is an organisation that produces a good or service for sale and it plays a central role in theory and practice of Managerial Economics. In contrast to nonprofit institutions like the ‘Ford Foundation’, most firms attempt to make a profit. There are thousands of firms in India producing large amount of goods and services; the rest are produced by the government and non-profit institutions. It is obvious that a lot of activities of the Indian economy revolve around firms.One of the crucial determinants of a firm’s behaviour is the state of technology.Technology imposes a limit on how much a firm can produce. It is the sum total of society’s pool of knowledge concerning the industrial and agricultural arts. Production is any activity that transforms inputs into output and is applicable not only to the production of goods like steel and automobiles, but also to production of
services like banking and insurance.The firm changes hired inputs into saleable output. An input is defined as anything that the firm uses in its production process. Most firms require a wide array of inputs. For example, some of the inputs used by major steel firms like SAIL or TISCO are iron ore, coal, oxygen, skilled labour of various types, the services of blast furnaces, electric furnaces, and rolling mills as well as the services of the people managing the companies. To give another example, the inputs in production and sale of “chaat” by a street vendor are all the ingredients that go into making ofthe “chaat”, i.e. the stove, the “carrier”, and the services of the vendor. The inputs or the factors of production are divisible into two broad categories - human resources and capital resources. Labour resource and entrepreneurial resource are the two human resource inputs while land, man-made capital forests, rivers, etc. are the two capital resources. Thus the four major factors of production (FOP) are land, man made capital, labour, and entrepreneur (organisation) while the remuneration they get is rent, interest (capital rental), wage, and profit, respectively. The function of the firm, thus, is to purchase resources or inputs of labour services,capital and raw materials in order to convert them into goods and services for sale. There is a circular flow of economic activity between individuals and firms as they are highly interdependent. Labour has no value in the market unless there is a firm willing to pay for it. In the same way, firms cannot rationalise production unless some consumer is willing to buy their products. However, there is some incentive
for each. Firms earn profits inturn satisfying the consumption demand of individuals and resource owners get wage, rent and interest payment. In the process of supplying the goods and services that consumers demand, firms provide employment to workers and also pay taxes that government uses to provide service (education, defense) that firms could not provide at all or as efficiently.Essentially a firm exists because the total cost of production of output is lower than if the firm did not exist. There are several reasons for lower costs. Firstly, longterm contract with labour saves the transaction costs because no new contract has to be negotiated every time a labour is to be hired or given new assignment.Secondly, there are government regulations like price-control and sales taxes also saved by having the transaction within the firm. Recall that sales tax is levied for transaction between firms and not within firms. When transactions take place within a firm they may be cheaper and hence such savings decrease the total cost of production of an output. In other words, the existence of firms could be explained by the fact that it saves transaction costs.However, the size of the firm has to be limited because as the firms grow larger, a point is reached where the cost of internal transaction becomes equal to or greater than the cost of transaction between firms. When such a stage is reached, it puts a limit to the size of the firm. Further, the cost of supplying additional services like legal, medical etc. within the firm exceeds the cost of purchasing these services from other firms; as such services may be required occasionally.Let us consider the size of different kinds of firms around us and try to understand the reasons for such differences. Why are service firms generally smaller than
capital-intensive firms like SAIL, Maruti Udyog, and ONGC etc? What is the reason that a number of firms are choosing the BPO route? A part of the
explanation must lie in the fact that it is cheaper to outsource than to absorb that activity within the firm. Consider a firm that needs to occasionally use legal service.Under what conditions will it choose to hire a full time lawyer and take her on its rolls and under what conditions will the firm outsource the legal activity or hire legal services on a case-by-case basis. Naturally, the answer depends upon the frequency of use for legal services. The transaction cost framework demonstrates that the firm will contract out if the cost of such an arrangement is lower and will prefer in-house legal staff when the opposite is true.
Firms are classified into different categories as follows:
a) Private sector firms.
b) Public sector firms.
c) Joint sector firms.
d) Non-profit firms.
Firms can also be classified on the basis of number of owners as:
a) Proprietorship.
b) Partnership.
c) Corporations.
Some firms mentioned below are different from above. They may provide service to a group of clients for example, patients or to a group of its members only.
a) Universities.
b) Public Libraries.
c) Hospitals.
d) Museums.
e) Churches.
f) Voluntary Organisations.
g) Cooperatives.
h) Unions.
i) Professional Societies, etc.
The concept of a firm plays a central role in the theory and practice of managerial economics. It is, therefore, valuable to discuss the objectives of a firm.
OBJECTIVE OF THE FIRM
The traditional objective of the firm has been profit maximisation. It is still regardedas the most common and theoretically the most plausible objective of businessfirms. We define profits as revenues less costs. But the definition of cost is quite different for the economist than for an accountant. Consider an independentbusinessperson who has an MBA degree and is considering investing Rs.1 lakh in a retail store that she would manage. There are no other employees. The projectedincome statement for the year as prepared by an accountant is as shown below:
a) Proprietorship.
b) Partnership.
c) Corporations.
Some firms mentioned below are different from above. They may provide service to a group of clients for example, patients or to a group of its members only.
a) Universities.
b) Public Libraries.
c) Hospitals.
d) Museums.
e) Churches.
f) Voluntary Organisations.
g) Cooperatives.
h) Unions.
i) Professional Societies, etc.
The concept of a firm plays a central role in the theory and practice of managerial economics. It is, therefore, valuable to discuss the objectives of a firm.
OBJECTIVE OF THE FIRM
The traditional objective of the firm has been profit maximisation. It is still regardedas the most common and theoretically the most plausible objective of businessfirms. We define profits as revenues less costs. But the definition of cost is quite different for the economist than for an accountant. Consider an independentbusinessperson who has an MBA degree and is considering investing Rs.1 lakh in a retail store that she would manage. There are no other employees. The projectedincome statement for the year as prepared by an accountant is as shown below:
This accounting or business profit is what is reported in publications and in the quarterly and annual financial reports of businesses The economist recognises other costs, defined as implicit costs. These costs are not reflected in cash outlays by the firm, but are the costs associated with foregone
opportunities. Such implicit costs are not included in the accounting statements but must be included in any rational decision making framework. There are two major implicit costs in this example. First, the owner has Rs.1 lakh invested in the business. Suppose the best alternative use for the money is a bank account paying a 10 per cent interest rate. This risk less investment would return Rs.10,000 annually. Thus, Rs.10,000 should be considered as the implicit or opportunity cost of having Rs.1 lakh invested in the retail store.Let us consider the second implicit cost, which includes the manager’s time and
talent. The annual wage return on an MBA degree may be taken as Rs.35,000 per year. This is the implicit cost of managing this business rather than working for someone else. Thus, the income statement should be amended in the following way in order to determine the economic profit:
opportunities. Such implicit costs are not included in the accounting statements but must be included in any rational decision making framework. There are two major implicit costs in this example. First, the owner has Rs.1 lakh invested in the business. Suppose the best alternative use for the money is a bank account paying a 10 per cent interest rate. This risk less investment would return Rs.10,000 annually. Thus, Rs.10,000 should be considered as the implicit or opportunity cost of having Rs.1 lakh invested in the retail store.Let us consider the second implicit cost, which includes the manager’s time and
talent. The annual wage return on an MBA degree may be taken as Rs.35,000 per year. This is the implicit cost of managing this business rather than working for someone else. Thus, the income statement should be amended in the following way in order to determine the economic profit:
Looking at this broader perspective, the business is projected to lose Rs.25,000 in the first year. Rs. 20,000 accounting profit disappears when all relevant costs are included. Another way of looking at the problem is to assume that Rs.1 lakh had to be borrowed at, say, 10 per cent interest and an MBA graduate hired at Rs.35,000 per year to run the store. In this case, the implicit costs become explicit and the accounting made explicit. Obviously, with the financial information reported in this way, an entirely different decision might be made on whether to start this business
or not.Thus, we can say that economic profit equals the revenue of the firm minus its explicit costs and implicit costs. To arrive at the cost incurred by a firm, a value must be put to all the inputs used by the firm. Money outlays are only a part of the costs. As stated above, economists also define opportunity cost. Since the resources are limited, and have alternative uses, you must sacrifice the production of a good or service in order to commit the resource to its present use. For example, if by being the owner manager of your firm, you sacrifice a job that offers you Rs. 2,00,000 per annum, then two lakhs is your opportunity cost of managing the firm. Similarly, if he was not playing cricket, Sachin Tendulkar, could have earned a living (perhaps, not such a good one!) by being a cricket commentator. Sachin’s opportunity cost of playing cricket is the amount he could have earned being a television commentator. The assignment of monetary values to physical inputs is easy in some cases and difficult in others. All economic costing is governed by the principle of opportunity cost. If the firm maximises profits, it must evaluate its costs according to the opportunity cost principle. Assigning costs is straightforward when the firm buys an input on a competitive market. Suppose the firm spends Rs. 20,000 on buying electricity. For its factory, it has sacrificed claims to whatever else Rs 20,000 can buy and thus the purchase price is a reasonable measure of the opportunity cost of using that electricity. The situation is the same for hired factors of production.However, a cost must be assigned to factors of production that the firm neither purchases, nor hires because it already owns them. The cost of using these inputs is implicit costs and has to be imputed. Implicit costs arise because the alternative
(opportunity) cost doctrine must be applied to be firm. The profit calculated after including implicit as well as explicit costs in total cost is called economic profit.Profit plays two primary roles in the free-market system. First, it acts as a signal to producers to increase or decrease the rate of output, or to enter or leave an industry. Second, profit is a reward for entrepreneurial activity, including risk taking and innovation. In a competitive industry, economic profits tend to be transitory.The achievement of high profits by a firm usually results in other firms increasing their output of that product, thus reducing price and profit. Firms that have monopoly power may be able to earn above-normal profits over a longer period;such profit does not play a socially useful role in the economy.Although, profit maximisation is a dominant objective of the firm, other important objectives of the firm, other than profit maximisation that we will discuss in this unit are:
1. Maximisation of sales revenue.
2. Maximisation of firm’s growth rate
3. Maximisation of manager’s own utility or satisfaction
4. Making a satisfactory rate of profit.
5. Long-run survival of the firm
6. Entry-prevention and risk avoidance.
VALUE MAXIMISATION
Most firms have sidelined short-term profit as their objective. Firms are often foundto sacrifice their short-term profit for increasing the future long-term profit. Thus,the theory states that the objective of a firm is to maximise wealth or value of thefirm. For example, firms undertake research and development expenditure,expenditure on new capital equipment or major marketing programmes whichrequire expenditure initially but are meant to generate future profits. The objectiveof the firm is thus to maximise the present or discounted value of all future profitsand can be stated as
or not.Thus, we can say that economic profit equals the revenue of the firm minus its explicit costs and implicit costs. To arrive at the cost incurred by a firm, a value must be put to all the inputs used by the firm. Money outlays are only a part of the costs. As stated above, economists also define opportunity cost. Since the resources are limited, and have alternative uses, you must sacrifice the production of a good or service in order to commit the resource to its present use. For example, if by being the owner manager of your firm, you sacrifice a job that offers you Rs. 2,00,000 per annum, then two lakhs is your opportunity cost of managing the firm. Similarly, if he was not playing cricket, Sachin Tendulkar, could have earned a living (perhaps, not such a good one!) by being a cricket commentator. Sachin’s opportunity cost of playing cricket is the amount he could have earned being a television commentator. The assignment of monetary values to physical inputs is easy in some cases and difficult in others. All economic costing is governed by the principle of opportunity cost. If the firm maximises profits, it must evaluate its costs according to the opportunity cost principle. Assigning costs is straightforward when the firm buys an input on a competitive market. Suppose the firm spends Rs. 20,000 on buying electricity. For its factory, it has sacrificed claims to whatever else Rs 20,000 can buy and thus the purchase price is a reasonable measure of the opportunity cost of using that electricity. The situation is the same for hired factors of production.However, a cost must be assigned to factors of production that the firm neither purchases, nor hires because it already owns them. The cost of using these inputs is implicit costs and has to be imputed. Implicit costs arise because the alternative
(opportunity) cost doctrine must be applied to be firm. The profit calculated after including implicit as well as explicit costs in total cost is called economic profit.Profit plays two primary roles in the free-market system. First, it acts as a signal to producers to increase or decrease the rate of output, or to enter or leave an industry. Second, profit is a reward for entrepreneurial activity, including risk taking and innovation. In a competitive industry, economic profits tend to be transitory.The achievement of high profits by a firm usually results in other firms increasing their output of that product, thus reducing price and profit. Firms that have monopoly power may be able to earn above-normal profits over a longer period;such profit does not play a socially useful role in the economy.Although, profit maximisation is a dominant objective of the firm, other important objectives of the firm, other than profit maximisation that we will discuss in this unit are:
1. Maximisation of sales revenue.
2. Maximisation of firm’s growth rate
3. Maximisation of manager’s own utility or satisfaction
4. Making a satisfactory rate of profit.
5. Long-run survival of the firm
6. Entry-prevention and risk avoidance.
VALUE MAXIMISATION
Most firms have sidelined short-term profit as their objective. Firms are often foundto sacrifice their short-term profit for increasing the future long-term profit. Thus,the theory states that the objective of a firm is to maximise wealth or value of thefirm. For example, firms undertake research and development expenditure,expenditure on new capital equipment or major marketing programmes whichrequire expenditure initially but are meant to generate future profits. The objectiveof the firm is thus to maximise the present or discounted value of all future profitsand can be stated as
Where, PV = Present Value of all expected future profits of the firm.
p ..p n = Expected profit in 1, 2........................n years.
r = Appropriate discount rate
t = Time period 1 ……….n.
Assumed profit is equal to total revenue (TR) minus total cost (TC), then the value of the firm can also be stated as:
p ..p n = Expected profit in 1, 2........................n years.
r = Appropriate discount rate
t = Time period 1 ……….n.
Assumed profit is equal to total revenue (TR) minus total cost (TC), then the value of the firm can also be stated as:
Thus maximising the discounted value of all future profits is equivalent to maximising the value of the firm.A careful inspection of the equation suggests how a firm’s managers and workers can influence its value. For example, in a company, the marketing managers and sales representatives work hard to increase its total revenues, while its production managers and manufacturing engineers strive to reduce its total costs. At the same time, its financial managers play a major role in obtaining capital, and hence influence the equation, while its research and development personnel invent and reduce its total costs. All of these diverse groups affect the company’s value,defined here as the present value of all expected future profits of the firm.
ALTERNATIVE OBJECTIVES OF FIRMS
Economists have also examined other objectives of firms. We shall discuss some of them here. According to Baumol, most managers will try to maximise sales revenue. There are many reasons for this. For example, the salary and other earnings of managers are more closely related to sales revenue than to profits.Banks and financers look at sales revenue while financing the corporation. The sales revenue trend is a readily available indicator of performance of the firm.Growth in sales increases the competitive strength of the firm. However, in the long run, sales maximisation and profit maximisation may converge into one objective.Another economist Robin Marris assumes that owners and managers have different utility functions to maximise. The manager’s utility function (Um) and Owner’ utility functions (Uo) are:
Um = f (Salary, job, power, prestige, status)
Uo = f (Output, capital, profit, share)
By maximising the variables, managers maximise both their own utility function and that of the owners. Most of the variables of both managers and owners are correlated with a single variable, namely, the size of the firm. Maximisation of these variables depends on the growth rate of the firm. Thus, Marris argues that managers will attempt to maximise growth rate of firms. However, this objective does not completely discard the profit maximisation objective.According to Oliver Williamson, managers seek to maximise their own utility function subject to a minimum level of profit. The utility function which managers seek to maximise include both quantifiable variables like salary and slack earnings and non-quantifiable variables like power, status, security of job, etc. The model developed by Cyert-March focuses on satisficing behaviour of managers. The firm has to deal with an uncertain business world and managers have to satisfy a variety of groups-staff, shareholders, customers, suppliers, authorities, etc. All these groups have often-conflicting interests in the firm. In order to reconcile between the conflicting interests and goals, managers form an aspiration level of the firm combining the following objectives – production, sales and market share, inventory and profit. The aspiration levels are modified and revised on the basis of
achievements and changing business environment.As is true with most economic models, the application will depend upon the situation and one cannot say that a particular model is better than the other. In general, one can assert that the profit maximising assumption seems to be a reasonable
approximation of the real world, although in certain cases there might be a deviation from this objective.
GOALS OF REAL WORLD FIRMS
By now we know that firms that maximise profits are not just concerned about short-run profits, but are more concerned with long-term profits. They may not take full advantage of a potential monopolistic situation, for example, many stores have liberal return policies; many firms spend millions on improving their reputation and want to be known as ‘good’ citizens. The decision maker’s income is often a cost of the firm. Most real-world production takes place in large corporations with 8-9 levels of management, thousands of stockholders and boards of directors. Selfinterested decision makers have little incentive to hold down their pay. If their pay is not held down, firm’s profit will be lower. Most firms manage to put some pressure
on managers to make at least a pre-designated level of profit.In the modern corporation, the owners or stockholders (i.e. the principals) hire managers (i.e., agents) to conduct the day-to-day operations of the firm. These managers are paid a salary to represent the interest of the owners, ostensibly, to
maximize the value of the firm. A board of directors is elected by the owners to meet regularly with the managers to oversee their activity and to try to ensure that the managers are, in fact, acting in the best interest of the owners. Because of the difficulty of monitoring the managers on a continual basis, it is possible that goals other than profit-maximization may be pursued. In addition to those mentioned earlier, the managers may seek to enhance their positions by spending corporate funds on fancy offices, excessive and expensive travel, club memberships, and so forth. In recent years, many corporations have taken action to align the interests of owners with the interests of the managers by tying a large share of managerial compensation to the financial performance of the firm.For example, the manager may be given a basic salary plus potentially large bonuses for meeting such goals as attaining a specified return on capital, growth in earnings, and/or increase in the price of the firm’s stock. With regard to the latter,the use of stock options awarded to top managers is a most effective way to ensure that managers act in the interest of the shareholders. Typically, the arrangement
provides that the manager is to receive an option to buy a specified number of shares of common stock at the current market price for a specified number of years. The only way the executives can benefit from such an arrangement is if the price of stock rises during the specified term. The option is exercised by buying the shares at the specified price, and the gain equals the increase in share price multiplied by the number of shares purchased. Sometimes the agreement specifies that the stock must be held for several years following purchase. Essentially, this option arrangement makes the manager a de facto owner, even if the option has not been exercised. In almost every case of a report of unusually high executive
compensation, the largest part of that compensation is associated with gains from stock options.Emergence of oligopoly, a market structure characterized by the existence of a few large firms, mergers and amalgamations have made the structure of industries concentrated so that few large (dominant) firms account for a major portion of an industry’s output. This shifts the pressure on each firm to maximise profit independently and leads to joint profit maximizations through cartels and collusions.Profit maximization may not be the only inevitable objective. India’s Global Companies and their Objectives: One of the most significant business and economic trends of the late twentieth century is the rise of ‘global’ or ‘stateless’ corporation. The trends toward global companies are unmistakable and are accelerating. The sharpest weapon that a corporation can develop to survive and thrive, in the globalised market place is competitiveness. Its corner stone as articulated by strategy guru Michael Porter is its ability to create more value on a
sustainable basis, for the customer than its rivals can.For the first time, many Indian corporations such as Reliance Industries, Ranbaxy, Sundaram Fasteners, Arvind Mills and Bajaj Auto among others are competing on the world stage. Whatever product or service a company offers it must meet the
customers wants in the most satisfactory manner. This should be the aim of the company. The competitiveness of Reliance in the global market place comes from both quality and scale. The challenge is to remain at the top. That challenge is linked with productivity. Ranbaxy’s greatest strength lies in the fact that it is strongly backward integrated. It helps them manage cost across the entire value chain making them extremely cost competitive. Cost leadership is a function of scale and technology. By upgrading technology, Ranbaxy could continue to be a cost leader. A company has to continuously upgrade itself on several parameters: production efficiency, product development, quality management and marketing skills. Sundaram has programmes to address all these parameters .This competitiveness - defined by Michael Porter as the sustained ability to generate more value for customers than the cost of creating that value - is what will keep India’s Companies alive in the bitter battle for survival that they arewaging even on their home turf with rivals pouring in from all corners of the globe.
FIRM’S CONSTRAINTS
Decision-making by firms takes place under several restrictions or constraints, such as:Resource Constraints: Many inputs may be available in a limited or fixed quantity e.g., skilled workers, imported raw material, etc. Legal Constraints: Both individuals and firms have to obey the laws of the State as well as local laws. Environmental laws, employment laws, disposal of wastes are some examples.Moral Constraints: These imply to actions that are not illegal but are sufficiently consistent with generally accepted standards of behaviour.Contractual Constraints: These bind the firm because of some prior agreement
such as a long-term lease on a building or a contract with a labour union that represents the firm’s employees.Decision-making under these constraints with optimal results is a fundamental part of managerial economics.
BASIC FACTORS OF DECISION-MAKING:THE INCREMENTAL CONCEPT
Incremental reasoning involves estimating the impact of decision alternatives. The two basic concepts in the incremental analysis are:
Incremental Cost (IC)
Incremental Revenue (IR)
Incremental cost is defined as the change in total cost as a result of change in the level of output, investment etc. Incremental revenue is defined as the change in total revenue resulting from a change in the level of output, prices etc. A manager always determines the worth of a decision on the basis of the criterion that IR>IC. A decision is profitable if
it increases revenue more than it increases cost
it reduces some costs more than it increases others
it increases some resources more than it decreases others
it decreases costs more than it decreases revenues.
To illustrate the above points, let us take a case where a firm gets an order that canget it additional revenue of Rs. 2,000. The normal cost of production of this order is–
Economists have also examined other objectives of firms. We shall discuss some of them here. According to Baumol, most managers will try to maximise sales revenue. There are many reasons for this. For example, the salary and other earnings of managers are more closely related to sales revenue than to profits.Banks and financers look at sales revenue while financing the corporation. The sales revenue trend is a readily available indicator of performance of the firm.Growth in sales increases the competitive strength of the firm. However, in the long run, sales maximisation and profit maximisation may converge into one objective.Another economist Robin Marris assumes that owners and managers have different utility functions to maximise. The manager’s utility function (Um) and Owner’ utility functions (Uo) are:
Um = f (Salary, job, power, prestige, status)
Uo = f (Output, capital, profit, share)
By maximising the variables, managers maximise both their own utility function and that of the owners. Most of the variables of both managers and owners are correlated with a single variable, namely, the size of the firm. Maximisation of these variables depends on the growth rate of the firm. Thus, Marris argues that managers will attempt to maximise growth rate of firms. However, this objective does not completely discard the profit maximisation objective.According to Oliver Williamson, managers seek to maximise their own utility function subject to a minimum level of profit. The utility function which managers seek to maximise include both quantifiable variables like salary and slack earnings and non-quantifiable variables like power, status, security of job, etc. The model developed by Cyert-March focuses on satisficing behaviour of managers. The firm has to deal with an uncertain business world and managers have to satisfy a variety of groups-staff, shareholders, customers, suppliers, authorities, etc. All these groups have often-conflicting interests in the firm. In order to reconcile between the conflicting interests and goals, managers form an aspiration level of the firm combining the following objectives – production, sales and market share, inventory and profit. The aspiration levels are modified and revised on the basis of
achievements and changing business environment.As is true with most economic models, the application will depend upon the situation and one cannot say that a particular model is better than the other. In general, one can assert that the profit maximising assumption seems to be a reasonable
approximation of the real world, although in certain cases there might be a deviation from this objective.
GOALS OF REAL WORLD FIRMS
By now we know that firms that maximise profits are not just concerned about short-run profits, but are more concerned with long-term profits. They may not take full advantage of a potential monopolistic situation, for example, many stores have liberal return policies; many firms spend millions on improving their reputation and want to be known as ‘good’ citizens. The decision maker’s income is often a cost of the firm. Most real-world production takes place in large corporations with 8-9 levels of management, thousands of stockholders and boards of directors. Selfinterested decision makers have little incentive to hold down their pay. If their pay is not held down, firm’s profit will be lower. Most firms manage to put some pressure
on managers to make at least a pre-designated level of profit.In the modern corporation, the owners or stockholders (i.e. the principals) hire managers (i.e., agents) to conduct the day-to-day operations of the firm. These managers are paid a salary to represent the interest of the owners, ostensibly, to
maximize the value of the firm. A board of directors is elected by the owners to meet regularly with the managers to oversee their activity and to try to ensure that the managers are, in fact, acting in the best interest of the owners. Because of the difficulty of monitoring the managers on a continual basis, it is possible that goals other than profit-maximization may be pursued. In addition to those mentioned earlier, the managers may seek to enhance their positions by spending corporate funds on fancy offices, excessive and expensive travel, club memberships, and so forth. In recent years, many corporations have taken action to align the interests of owners with the interests of the managers by tying a large share of managerial compensation to the financial performance of the firm.For example, the manager may be given a basic salary plus potentially large bonuses for meeting such goals as attaining a specified return on capital, growth in earnings, and/or increase in the price of the firm’s stock. With regard to the latter,the use of stock options awarded to top managers is a most effective way to ensure that managers act in the interest of the shareholders. Typically, the arrangement
provides that the manager is to receive an option to buy a specified number of shares of common stock at the current market price for a specified number of years. The only way the executives can benefit from such an arrangement is if the price of stock rises during the specified term. The option is exercised by buying the shares at the specified price, and the gain equals the increase in share price multiplied by the number of shares purchased. Sometimes the agreement specifies that the stock must be held for several years following purchase. Essentially, this option arrangement makes the manager a de facto owner, even if the option has not been exercised. In almost every case of a report of unusually high executive
compensation, the largest part of that compensation is associated with gains from stock options.Emergence of oligopoly, a market structure characterized by the existence of a few large firms, mergers and amalgamations have made the structure of industries concentrated so that few large (dominant) firms account for a major portion of an industry’s output. This shifts the pressure on each firm to maximise profit independently and leads to joint profit maximizations through cartels and collusions.Profit maximization may not be the only inevitable objective. India’s Global Companies and their Objectives: One of the most significant business and economic trends of the late twentieth century is the rise of ‘global’ or ‘stateless’ corporation. The trends toward global companies are unmistakable and are accelerating. The sharpest weapon that a corporation can develop to survive and thrive, in the globalised market place is competitiveness. Its corner stone as articulated by strategy guru Michael Porter is its ability to create more value on a
sustainable basis, for the customer than its rivals can.For the first time, many Indian corporations such as Reliance Industries, Ranbaxy, Sundaram Fasteners, Arvind Mills and Bajaj Auto among others are competing on the world stage. Whatever product or service a company offers it must meet the
customers wants in the most satisfactory manner. This should be the aim of the company. The competitiveness of Reliance in the global market place comes from both quality and scale. The challenge is to remain at the top. That challenge is linked with productivity. Ranbaxy’s greatest strength lies in the fact that it is strongly backward integrated. It helps them manage cost across the entire value chain making them extremely cost competitive. Cost leadership is a function of scale and technology. By upgrading technology, Ranbaxy could continue to be a cost leader. A company has to continuously upgrade itself on several parameters: production efficiency, product development, quality management and marketing skills. Sundaram has programmes to address all these parameters .This competitiveness - defined by Michael Porter as the sustained ability to generate more value for customers than the cost of creating that value - is what will keep India’s Companies alive in the bitter battle for survival that they arewaging even on their home turf with rivals pouring in from all corners of the globe.
FIRM’S CONSTRAINTS
Decision-making by firms takes place under several restrictions or constraints, such as:Resource Constraints: Many inputs may be available in a limited or fixed quantity e.g., skilled workers, imported raw material, etc. Legal Constraints: Both individuals and firms have to obey the laws of the State as well as local laws. Environmental laws, employment laws, disposal of wastes are some examples.Moral Constraints: These imply to actions that are not illegal but are sufficiently consistent with generally accepted standards of behaviour.Contractual Constraints: These bind the firm because of some prior agreement
such as a long-term lease on a building or a contract with a labour union that represents the firm’s employees.Decision-making under these constraints with optimal results is a fundamental part of managerial economics.
BASIC FACTORS OF DECISION-MAKING:THE INCREMENTAL CONCEPT
Incremental reasoning involves estimating the impact of decision alternatives. The two basic concepts in the incremental analysis are:
Incremental Cost (IC)
Incremental Revenue (IR)
Incremental cost is defined as the change in total cost as a result of change in the level of output, investment etc. Incremental revenue is defined as the change in total revenue resulting from a change in the level of output, prices etc. A manager always determines the worth of a decision on the basis of the criterion that IR>IC. A decision is profitable if
it increases revenue more than it increases cost
it reduces some costs more than it increases others
it increases some resources more than it decreases others
it decreases costs more than it decreases revenues.
To illustrate the above points, let us take a case where a firm gets an order that canget it additional revenue of Rs. 2,000. The normal cost of production of this order is–
Comparing the additional revenue with the above cost suggests that the order is unprofitable. But, if some existing facilities and underutilised capacity of the firm were utilised, it would add much less to cost than Rs. 2,400. For example, let us assume that the addition to cost due to this new order is, say, the following:
In the above case the firm would earn a net profit of Rs. 2000 – Rs. 1400 = Rs. 600, while at first it appeared that the firm would make a loss of Rs. 400 by accepting the order.The worth of such a decision can be judged on the basis of the following theorem. Theorem I: A course of action should be pursued upto the point where its incremental benefits equal its increment costs.According to the theorem, the firm represented in Table 2.1 will produce only seven units of output as its Marginal Revenue (MR)= Marginal Cost (MC)1 at that level of output. As can be calculated from the Table, the MC of 8th unit is more than its MR. Hence the firm gets negative profit from 8th unit and thus is advised not to produce it. The acceptance or rejection of an order by a firm for its product depends on whether the resultant costs are greater or less than the resultant revenue. If these principles are not followed, the equilibrium position would be disturbed. But the problem with the concept of marginalism is that the independent variable may be subject to “bulk changes” instead of “unit changes”. For example, a builder may not change one labourer at a time, but many of them together. Similarly, the output may
change because of a change in process, pattern or a combination of factors, which may not always be measured in unit terms. In such cases, the concept of marginalism is changed to incrementalism. Or, in other words, incrementalism more general, whereas marginalism is more specific. All marginal concepts are incremental concepts, but all incremental concepts need not be marginal concepts.
change because of a change in process, pattern or a combination of factors, which may not always be measured in unit terms. In such cases, the concept of marginalism is changed to incrementalism. Or, in other words, incrementalism more general, whereas marginalism is more specific. All marginal concepts are incremental concepts, but all incremental concepts need not be marginal concepts.
THE EQUI-MARGINAL PRINCIPLE
According to this principle, different courses of action should be pursued upto the point where all the courses provide equal marginal benefit per unit of cost. It states that a rational decision-maker would allocate or hire his resources in such a way that the ratio of marginal returns and marginal costs of various uses of a given resource or of various resources in a given use is the same. For example, a consumer seeking maximum utility (satisfaction) from his consumption basket, will allocate his consumption budget on goods and services such that
MU1/MC = MU2 / MC2 =……..= MUn / MCn,
Where MU1 = marginal utility from good one,
MC1 = marginal cost of good one and so on.
Similarly, a producer seeking maximum profit would use the technique of production(input-mix.) which would ensure
MRP1/MC1 = MRP2/MC2 =………….=MRPn/MCn
Where MRP1=Marginal revenue product of input one (e.g. Labour), MC1=Marginal cost of input one and so on.It is easy to see that if the above equation was not satisfied, the decision makers could add to his utility/profit by reshuffling his resources/input e.g. if MU1/ MC1>MU2/MC2 the consumer would add to his utility by buying more of good one and less of good two. Table 2.2 summarises this principle for different sellers.Example: A multi-commodity consumer wishes to purchase successive units of A,B and C. Each unit costs the same and the consumer is determined to have a combination including all the three items. His budget constraint is such that he cannot buy more than six units in all. Again, he is subject to diminishing marginalutility i.e. as he has more of an item,he wants to consume less of it.Table shows the optimisation example:
According to this principle, different courses of action should be pursued upto the point where all the courses provide equal marginal benefit per unit of cost. It states that a rational decision-maker would allocate or hire his resources in such a way that the ratio of marginal returns and marginal costs of various uses of a given resource or of various resources in a given use is the same. For example, a consumer seeking maximum utility (satisfaction) from his consumption basket, will allocate his consumption budget on goods and services such that
MU1/MC = MU2 / MC2 =……..= MUn / MCn,
Where MU1 = marginal utility from good one,
MC1 = marginal cost of good one and so on.
Similarly, a producer seeking maximum profit would use the technique of production(input-mix.) which would ensure
MRP1/MC1 = MRP2/MC2 =………….=MRPn/MCn
Where MRP1=Marginal revenue product of input one (e.g. Labour), MC1=Marginal cost of input one and so on.It is easy to see that if the above equation was not satisfied, the decision makers could add to his utility/profit by reshuffling his resources/input e.g. if MU1/ MC1>MU2/MC2 the consumer would add to his utility by buying more of good one and less of good two. Table 2.2 summarises this principle for different sellers.Example: A multi-commodity consumer wishes to purchase successive units of A,B and C. Each unit costs the same and the consumer is determined to have a combination including all the three items. His budget constraint is such that he cannot buy more than six units in all. Again, he is subject to diminishing marginalutility i.e. as he has more of an item,he wants to consume less of it.Table shows the optimisation example:
The utility maximising consumer will end up with a purchase of 3A+2B+1C because that combination satisfies equimarginalism:
MUa=MUb=MUc=8 In the real world, often the equi-marginalism concept has to be replaced by equi-incrementalism.This is because, changes in the real world are discrete or lumpy and therefore the concept of marginal change may not always apply. Instead,changes will be incremental in nature, but the decision rule or optimising principle will remain the same.
THE DISCOUNTING PRINCIPLE
Many transactions involve making or receiving cash payments at various futuredates. A person who takes a house loan trades a promise to make monthlypayments for say, fifteen or twenty years for a large amount of cash now to payfor a home. This case and other similar cases relate to the time value of money.The time value of money refers to the fact that a rupee to be received in the futureis not worth a rupee today. Therefore, it is necessary to have techniques for measuring the value today (i.e., the present value) of rupees to be received or paidat different points in the future. This section outlines the approach to analyzingproblems that involve payment and/or receipt of money at one or more points intime.One may ask how much money today would be equivalent to Rs. 100 a year fromnow if the rate of interest is 5%. This involves determining the present value ofRs. 100 to be received after one year. Applying the formula –1.05/100 PV = we obtain Rs. 95.24,Rs. 95.24 will accumulate to an amount exactly equal to Rs. 100 in one year at the interest rate of 5 per cent. Looked at another way, you will be willing to pay maximum of Rs. 95.24 for the benefit of receiving Rs. 100 one year from now if the prevailing interest rate is 5 per cent.The same analysis can be extended to any number of periods. A sum of Rs. 100 two years from now is worth: 1.052/100 PV2 = Rs.90.70 today.In general, the present value of a sum to be received at any future date can befound by the following formula:
MUa=MUb=MUc=8 In the real world, often the equi-marginalism concept has to be replaced by equi-incrementalism.This is because, changes in the real world are discrete or lumpy and therefore the concept of marginal change may not always apply. Instead,changes will be incremental in nature, but the decision rule or optimising principle will remain the same.
THE DISCOUNTING PRINCIPLE
Many transactions involve making or receiving cash payments at various futuredates. A person who takes a house loan trades a promise to make monthlypayments for say, fifteen or twenty years for a large amount of cash now to payfor a home. This case and other similar cases relate to the time value of money.The time value of money refers to the fact that a rupee to be received in the futureis not worth a rupee today. Therefore, it is necessary to have techniques for measuring the value today (i.e., the present value) of rupees to be received or paidat different points in the future. This section outlines the approach to analyzingproblems that involve payment and/or receipt of money at one or more points intime.One may ask how much money today would be equivalent to Rs. 100 a year fromnow if the rate of interest is 5%. This involves determining the present value ofRs. 100 to be received after one year. Applying the formula –1.05/100 PV = we obtain Rs. 95.24,Rs. 95.24 will accumulate to an amount exactly equal to Rs. 100 in one year at the interest rate of 5 per cent. Looked at another way, you will be willing to pay maximum of Rs. 95.24 for the benefit of receiving Rs. 100 one year from now if the prevailing interest rate is 5 per cent.The same analysis can be extended to any number of periods. A sum of Rs. 100 two years from now is worth: 1.052/100 PV2 = Rs.90.70 today.In general, the present value of a sum to be received at any future date can befound by the following formula:
PV = present value, Rn = amount to be received in future, i = rate of interest, n = number of years lapsing between the receipt of R. If the receipts are made available over a number of years, the formula becomes:
In the above formula if R1 = R2= R3 etc., it becomes an ‘annuity’. An annuity has been defined as series of periodic equal payments. Although the term is often thought of in terms of a retirement pension, there are many other examples of annuities. The repayment schedule for a home loan is an annuity. A father’s agreement to send his son Rs. 1000 each month while he is in college is another example. Usually, the number of periods is specified, but not always. Sometimes retirement benefits are paid monthly as long as a person is alive. In other case, the annuity is paid forever and is called ‘perpetuity.It must be emphasized that the strict definition of an annuity implies equal payments. A contract to make 20 annual payments, which increase each year by,say, 10 per cent, would not be an annuity. As some financial arrangements provide for payments with periodic increase, care must be taken not to apply an annuity formula if the flow of payments is not a true annuity. The present value of an annuity can be thought of as the sum of the present values of each of several amounts. Consider an annuity of three Rs. 100 payments at the end of each of the next three years at 10 percent interest. The present value ofeach payment is
Although this approach works, it clearly would be cumbersome for annuities of more than a few periods. For example, consider using this method to find the present value of a monthly payment for forty years if the monthly interest rate is 1 per cent. That would require evaluating the present value of each of 480 amounts! In general, the formula for the present value of an annuity of A rupees per period for n periods and a discount rate of i is
THE OPPORTUNITY COST PRINCIPLE
The opportunity cost of anything is the return that can be had from the next best alternative use. A farmer who is producing wheat can also produce potatoes with the same factors. Therefore, the opportunity cost of a quintal of wheat is the amount of the output of potatoes given up. The opportunity costs are the ‘costs of sacrificed alternatives.’Whenever the manager takes a decision he chooses one course of action, sacrificing the other alternative courses. We can therefore evaluate the one, which is chosen in terms of the other (next best) alternative that is sacrificed. A machine
can produce either X or Y. The opportunity cost of producing a given quantity of X is the quantity of Y which it would have produced. The opportunity cost of holding Rs.1000 as cash in hand for one year is the 10% rate of interest, which would have been earned had it been invested in the form of
fixed deposits in the bank.
all decisions which involve choice must involve opportunity cost calculation,
the opportunity cost may be either real or monetary, either implicit or explicit,
either non-quantifiable or quantifiable.Opportunity costs’ relevance is not limited to individual decisions. Opportunity costs are also relevant to government’s decisions, which affect everyone in society. A common example is the guns-versus-butter debate. The resources that a society has are limited; therefore its decisions to use those resources to have more guns (more weapons) means that it must have less butter (fewer consumer goods). Thus when society decides to spend 100 crore on developing a defence system, the opportunity cost of that decision is 100 crores not spent on fighting drugs, helping the homeless, or paying off some of the national debt. For the country as a whole, the production possibility reflects opportunity costs.
Figure shows the Production Possibility Curve (PPC) reflecting the different combinations of goods, which an economy can produce, given its state of
technology and total resources. It illustrates the menu of choices open to the economy. Let us take the example that the economy can produce only two goods, butter and guns. The economy can produce only guns, only butter or a combination of the two, illustrating the trade offs or choice inherent in such a decision. The opportunity cost of choosing guns over butter increases as the production of guns is increased. The reason is that some resources are relatively better suited to producing guns. The quantity of butter, which has to be sacrificed to produce an additional unit of guns, is called the opportunity cost of guns (in terms of butter).Due to the increasing opportunity cost of guns, the PPC curve will be concave to the origin. Increasing opportunity cost of guns means that to produce each additional unit of guns, more and more units of butter have to be sacrificed. The basis for increasing opportunity costs is the following assumptions: i) Some factors of production are more efficient in the production of butter and some more efficient in production of guns. This property of factors is called specificity. Thus specificity of factors of production causes increasing opportunity costs.
The opportunity cost of anything is the return that can be had from the next best alternative use. A farmer who is producing wheat can also produce potatoes with the same factors. Therefore, the opportunity cost of a quintal of wheat is the amount of the output of potatoes given up. The opportunity costs are the ‘costs of sacrificed alternatives.’Whenever the manager takes a decision he chooses one course of action, sacrificing the other alternative courses. We can therefore evaluate the one, which is chosen in terms of the other (next best) alternative that is sacrificed. A machine
can produce either X or Y. The opportunity cost of producing a given quantity of X is the quantity of Y which it would have produced. The opportunity cost of holding Rs.1000 as cash in hand for one year is the 10% rate of interest, which would have been earned had it been invested in the form of
fixed deposits in the bank.
all decisions which involve choice must involve opportunity cost calculation,
the opportunity cost may be either real or monetary, either implicit or explicit,
either non-quantifiable or quantifiable.Opportunity costs’ relevance is not limited to individual decisions. Opportunity costs are also relevant to government’s decisions, which affect everyone in society. A common example is the guns-versus-butter debate. The resources that a society has are limited; therefore its decisions to use those resources to have more guns (more weapons) means that it must have less butter (fewer consumer goods). Thus when society decides to spend 100 crore on developing a defence system, the opportunity cost of that decision is 100 crores not spent on fighting drugs, helping the homeless, or paying off some of the national debt. For the country as a whole, the production possibility reflects opportunity costs.
Figure shows the Production Possibility Curve (PPC) reflecting the different combinations of goods, which an economy can produce, given its state of
technology and total resources. It illustrates the menu of choices open to the economy. Let us take the example that the economy can produce only two goods, butter and guns. The economy can produce only guns, only butter or a combination of the two, illustrating the trade offs or choice inherent in such a decision. The opportunity cost of choosing guns over butter increases as the production of guns is increased. The reason is that some resources are relatively better suited to producing guns. The quantity of butter, which has to be sacrificed to produce an additional unit of guns, is called the opportunity cost of guns (in terms of butter).Due to the increasing opportunity cost of guns, the PPC curve will be concave to the origin. Increasing opportunity cost of guns means that to produce each additional unit of guns, more and more units of butter have to be sacrificed. The basis for increasing opportunity costs is the following assumptions: i) Some factors of production are more efficient in the production of butter and some more efficient in production of guns. This property of factors is called specificity. Thus specificity of factors of production causes increasing opportunity costs.
ii) The production of the goods require more of one factor than the other. For example, the production of guns may require more capital than that of butter.Hence, as more and more of capital is used in the manufacture of guns, the
opportunity cost of guns is likely to increase.Let us assume that an economy is at point A where it uses all its resources in the production of butter. Starting from A, the production of 1 unit of guns requires that AC units of butter be given up. The production of a second unit of guns requires that additional CD units of butter be given up. A third requires that DE be given up, and so on. Since DE>CD>AC, and so on, it means that for every additional unit of guns more and more units of butter will have to be sacrificed, or in other words, the
opportunity cost keeps on increasing.The opportunity cost of the first few units of guns would initially be low and those resources, which are more efficient in the production of guns move from, butter production to gun production. As more and more units of guns are produced,however, it becomes necessary to move into gun production, even for those factors,which are more efficient in the production of butter. As this happens, the opportunity cost of guns gets larger and larger. Thus, due to increasing opportunity costs the PPC is concave. If the PPC curve were to be a straight line, the opportunity cost of guns would always be constant. This would mean equal (and not increasing amounts of butter) would have to be forgone to produce an additional unit of guns. The assumption of constant opportunity costs is very unrealistic. It implies that all the factors of production are equally efficient either in the production of butter or in the production of guns.For many of the choice society make opportunity costs tend to increase as we choose more and more of an item. Such a phenomenon about choice is so common, in fact, that it has acquired a name: the principle of increasing marginal opportunity cost. This principle states that in order to get more of something, one must give up ever-increasing quantities of something else. In other words, initially the opportunity costs of an activity are low, but they increase the more we concentrate on that
activity.THE INVISIBLE HAND
Adam Smith, the father of modern economics believed that there existed an“invisible hand” which ruled over the economic system. According to him theeconomic system, left to itself, is self-regulating. The basic driving force in such a system is trying to enhance its own economic well-being. But the actions of eachunit, acting according to its own self-interest, are also in the interests of theeconomy as a whole.Producers are led by the profit motive to produce those goods and services whichthe consumers want. They try to do this at the minimum possible cost in order to maximize their profits. Moreover, if there is competition among a number ofproducers, they will each try to keep the price of their product low in order toattract the consumers. The goods produced are made available in the market by traders. They also act in their own self-interest. However, in a self-regulatingeconomy, there is rarely any shortage of goods and services.Decisions to save and invest are also taken by the individual economic units. Forexample, households save some of their income and deposit part of it in the banks,or invest it in shares and debentures and so on. The producers borrow from thebanking system and also issue shares and debentures to finance their investments.In turn, they reinvest a part of their profits.All the economic functions have been carried out by individuals acting in isolation.There is no government or centralized authority to determine who should producewhat and in what quantity, and where it should be made available. Yet in a selfregulatingeconomy there is seldom a shortage of goods and services. Practically everything you want to buy is available in the market. Thus according to AdamSmith, the economic system is guided by the “invisible hand”. In a more technicalway we can say that the basic economic problems in a society are solved by theoperation of market forces.
opportunity cost of guns is likely to increase.Let us assume that an economy is at point A where it uses all its resources in the production of butter. Starting from A, the production of 1 unit of guns requires that AC units of butter be given up. The production of a second unit of guns requires that additional CD units of butter be given up. A third requires that DE be given up, and so on. Since DE>CD>AC, and so on, it means that for every additional unit of guns more and more units of butter will have to be sacrificed, or in other words, the
opportunity cost keeps on increasing.The opportunity cost of the first few units of guns would initially be low and those resources, which are more efficient in the production of guns move from, butter production to gun production. As more and more units of guns are produced,however, it becomes necessary to move into gun production, even for those factors,which are more efficient in the production of butter. As this happens, the opportunity cost of guns gets larger and larger. Thus, due to increasing opportunity costs the PPC is concave. If the PPC curve were to be a straight line, the opportunity cost of guns would always be constant. This would mean equal (and not increasing amounts of butter) would have to be forgone to produce an additional unit of guns. The assumption of constant opportunity costs is very unrealistic. It implies that all the factors of production are equally efficient either in the production of butter or in the production of guns.For many of the choice society make opportunity costs tend to increase as we choose more and more of an item. Such a phenomenon about choice is so common, in fact, that it has acquired a name: the principle of increasing marginal opportunity cost. This principle states that in order to get more of something, one must give up ever-increasing quantities of something else. In other words, initially the opportunity costs of an activity are low, but they increase the more we concentrate on that
activity.THE INVISIBLE HAND
Adam Smith, the father of modern economics believed that there existed an“invisible hand” which ruled over the economic system. According to him theeconomic system, left to itself, is self-regulating. The basic driving force in such a system is trying to enhance its own economic well-being. But the actions of eachunit, acting according to its own self-interest, are also in the interests of theeconomy as a whole.Producers are led by the profit motive to produce those goods and services whichthe consumers want. They try to do this at the minimum possible cost in order to maximize their profits. Moreover, if there is competition among a number ofproducers, they will each try to keep the price of their product low in order toattract the consumers. The goods produced are made available in the market by traders. They also act in their own self-interest. However, in a self-regulatingeconomy, there is rarely any shortage of goods and services.Decisions to save and invest are also taken by the individual economic units. Forexample, households save some of their income and deposit part of it in the banks,or invest it in shares and debentures and so on. The producers borrow from thebanking system and also issue shares and debentures to finance their investments.In turn, they reinvest a part of their profits.All the economic functions have been carried out by individuals acting in isolation.There is no government or centralized authority to determine who should producewhat and in what quantity, and where it should be made available. Yet in a selfregulatingeconomy there is seldom a shortage of goods and services. Practically everything you want to buy is available in the market. Thus according to AdamSmith, the economic system is guided by the “invisible hand”. In a more technicalway we can say that the basic economic problems in a society are solved by theoperation of market forces.
