Tài liệu tham khảo Tài liệu trung cấp môn Kinh tế vi mô bằng tiếng Anh gồm 41 phần giúp sinh viên khoa kinh tế học tốt môn Kinh tế vi mô. Tài liệu này là phần 20 giới thiệu về " Tối đa hóa lợi nhuận - Profit maximization " | CHAPTER I 9 PROFIT MAXIMIZATION In the last chapter we discussed ways to describe the technological choices facing the firm. In this chapter we describe a model of how the firm chooses the amount to produce and the method of production to employ. The model we will use is the model of profit maximization the firm chooses a production plan so as to maximize its profits. In this chapter we will assume that the firm faces fixed prices for its inputs and outputs. We said earlier that economists call a market where the individual producers take the prices as outside their control a competitive market. So in this chapter we want to study the profit-maximization problem of a firm that faces competitive markets for the factors of production it uses and the output goods it produces. Profits Profits are defined as revenues minus cost. Suppose that the firm produces n outputs t i . yn and uses m inputs 1 . xm . Let the prices of the output goods be pi . pn and the prices of the inputs be wi . wm . PROFITS 335 The profits the firm receives tt can be expressed as n m X - WiXi. 1 1 2 1 The first term is revenue and the second term is cost. In the expression for cost we should be sure to include all of the factors of production used by the firm valued at their market price. Usually this is pretty obvious but in cases where the firm is owned and operated by the same individual it is possible to forget about some of the factors. For example if an individual works in his own firm then his labor is an input and it should be counted as part of the costs. His wage rate is simply the market price of his labor what he would be getting if he sold his labor on the open market. Similarly if a farmer owns some land and uses it in his production that land should be valued at its market value for purposes of computing the economic costs. We have seen that economic costs like these are often referred to as opportunity costs. The name comes from the idea that if you are using your labor for
