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The total cost curve, if non-linear, can represent increasing and diminishing marginal returns.. The short-run total cost (SRTC) and long-run total cost (LRTC) curves are increasing in the quantity of output produced because producing more output requires more labor usage in both the short and long runs, and because in the long run producing more output involves using more of the physical ...
For example, a firm cannot build an additional factory in the short run, but this restriction does not apply in the long run. Because forecasting introduces complexity, firms typically assume that the long-run costs are based on the technology, information, and prices that the firm faces currently. The long-run cost curve does not try to ...
A long-run average cost curve is typically downward sloping at relatively low levels of output, and upward or downward sloping at relatively high levels of output. Most commonly, the long-run average cost curve is U-shaped, by definition reflecting economies of scale where negatively sloped and diseconomies of scale where positively sloped.
Each of these factors reduces the long run average costs (LRAC) of production by shifting the short-run average total cost (SRATC) curve down and to the right. Economies of scale is a concept that may explain patterns in international trade or in the number of firms in a given market.
Modern cost theory and recent empirical studies [5] [6] suggest that, instead of a U-shaped curve due to the presence of diseconomies of scale, the long run average cost curve is more likely to be L-shaped. In the L-shaped cost curve, the long run cost would keep fixed with a significantly increased scale of output once the firm reaches the ...
In the long run, all factors of production are variable and subject to change in response to a given increase in production scale. In other words, returns to scale analysis is a long-term theory because a company can only change the scale of production in the long run by changing factors of production, such as building new facilities, investing ...
The marginal cost can also be calculated by finding the derivative of total cost or variable cost. Either of these derivatives work because the total cost includes variable cost and fixed cost, but fixed cost is a constant with a derivative of 0. The total cost of producing a specific level of output is the cost of all the factors of production.
The marginal cost can be either short-run or long-run marginal cost, depending on what costs vary with output, since in the long run even building size is chosen to fit the desired output. If the cost function C {\displaystyle C} is continuous and differentiable , the marginal cost M C {\displaystyle MC} is the first derivative of the cost ...