MHR 522 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Surplus Labour, Class Conflict, Monopsony

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plumbat413

2 Apr 2017

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Lecture 3 - continuation of a to g readings (d, e,g really need to make notes, since no notes were taken in class for those 3 readings) This reading focuses on what was learned in economics, that the market should be a free market. Commodity = a raw material or primary agricultural product that can be bought and sold, such as copper or coffee. In this perspective labour can be seen as a commodity. Since it is sold by employees and is bought by employers. Here you can have anything to explain to the market but they all are the same in a way that supply is always upward sloping and demand is always downward sloping. There are natural forces that shift points on the curve to always meet back at equilibrium. There is 2 types of claim in this world. There are people who see that labour should not be seen as a commodity.

Related Questions

AEC 316 - Agricultural Marketing
Homework Assignment 2: Chapter 2

Name:____________________ Date:____________________

Multiple choice questions.

There is only one correct answer in multiple choice questions. Please, mark the correct

answer. Each multiple choice question is worth 5 points.

1. A perfectly competitive firmâs demand curve equals its:

Marginal cost curve

Average variable cost curve

Average fixed cost curve

Average revenue curve

None of the above

2. A perfectly competitive firm maximizes profits by setting price equal to:

a. Marginal cost

b. Marginal revenue

c. Average revenue

d. Average total cost

e. Average variable cost

3. In order for a monopoly to continue to be a monopoly:

a. The marginal revenue curve must be downward sloping

b. There must be no close substitutes

c. Marginal revenue must equal marginal costs

d. Average total costs must be decreasing

e. None of the above

4. Marketing strategy which involves dividing a broad target market into subsets of consumers who have, or are perceived to have, common needs, interests, and priorities, and then designing and implementing strategies to target them.

a. Brand name

b. Minor ingredients

c. Market segmentation

d. Product features

e. Packaging

5. What characteristic is indicative of oligopolies?

Low profits

Interdependence of firms

Many firms

Entry is blocked

None of the above

6. At an equilibrium price:

a.The self-interest of consumers is maximized

b.Supply equals demand

c.There is an upward pressure on price

d.There is a downward pressure on price

None of the above

7. When both supply and demand increase, equilibrium quantity will:

a.Decrease

b.Increase

Stay the same

Canât say

None of the above

8. Elasticity is a concept that deals with:

a.Market structure

b.Market equilibrium

c.Perfect competition

d.Consumer and producer sensitivity to changes in prices and income

None of the above

9. A set of competing firms producing similar products or a commodity in a market is called a(n) ___ .

a.Branch

b.Competition

c.Channel

Industry

None of the above

10. A market structure where there is only one buyer of a specific product is called:

a.Monopsony

b.Monopoly

c.Oligopsony

Monopsonistic competition

None of the above

Essay question: 50 points

11. Use the agricultural commodity that you selected in Chapter 1 and choose one agribusiness that buys it. Investigate the agribusiness using the Internet and other resources, and then write an essay addressing all or as many as possible of the following aspects of the agribusiness:

Size

Sales

Scope of product line

Worth (if public)

Number of employees

Locations globally

Market structure

Industry sector

All your answers/discussion should be typed in one essay that is at least 15 lines long (using formal English, correct paragraph and sentence structure, and making sure your ideas flow well from one sentence to another) using Times New Roman, 12 point, double space and 1-inch margins all around. Before submitting the final essay, use the âSpelling & Grammarâ function of the MS Word to correct grammar.

At the end of your essay, provide the full citation record in alphabetical order in your list of references. For examples, visit: http://www.saea.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/reference-style-sheet.pdf. Please, note that the list of references does not count toward the minimum required 15 lines. Include your references in the text as â(Smith, 2015)â when citing at the end of a sentence, or âAccording to Smith (2015)â when citing at the beginning of a sentence. For example,

Negative publicity is a key determinant affecting consumersâ buying decisions (Ahluwalia, Burnkrant, and Unnava, 2000).

According to Cawley and Rizzo (2005), pharmaceutical products in the same therapeutic class experienced negative spillover in terms of lost sales.

Note: Most of the future essay questions will build on this essay question and/or the one agricultural commodity that you choose. This means that if there is little information on the agricultural commodity that you have chosen for this essay question, you should consider choosing a more common agricultural commodity on which ample information is available. In addition, this course will require you to compile all your answers to the essay questions into one term paper to be submitted by the end of the course. This means that the more effort you put into answering essay questions now, the more material you will have accumulated for your term paper by the end of the semester.

TYPE YOUR ANSWER TO THE ESSAY QUESTION 11 BELOW USING AS MUCH SPACE AS YOU NEED. THEN, PRINT THE HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT AND SUBMIT THE HARD COPY.

Suppose you are the proprietor of the only bar in Dallas. Since you are the only place in town for people to get drinks you exercise some market power and face a downward sloping demand curve for drinks given by P = 10 - (3/2)Q for each individual. Your total costs are given by TC = Q. There are 100 individuals with identical demand.

Assuming that you must follow a uniform pricing strategy, what is the profit maximizing price and quantity and the associated profit? What is consumer surplus? Is the market efficient?
If each person is charged their reservation price, what type of price discrimination is this? Assuming you can engage in this pricing scheme, what is your profit maximizing price and quantity and the associated profit? What is consumer surplus? Is the market efficient?
Now assume that you decide to try a two-part tariff scheme instead, charging a price per drink and a cover charge at the door. What is the optimal two-part tariff charged to each person? How many drinks will be sold to each person? What is your total profit associated with this scheme? What is the total consumer surplus? Is the market efficient?
Assume that your clientele is composed of two types: 50 customers are heavy drinkers with individual demand described by P_H = 15 - Q_H and 50 customers are light drinkers with individual demand described by P_L = 10 -3Q_L. Which group would you rather charge a higher price? Why?
Assume that the market is split as described before. There is no constraint on the number of drinks you can sell. You can charge a different price to each group. What is the optimal price and corresponding quantity for each segment of the market? What is your total profit under this scheme? What type of price discrimination is this?
Assume that the market is split as described before. The city of Dallas tells you that can only sell 325 drinks in total. You can charge a different price to each group. What is the optimal price and corresponding quantity for each segment of the market? What is your total profit under this scheme?

whitebutterfly93

Please answer the following questions. Show your work and then select A, B, C or D as your final answer. Thanks.

Barbershops in a large city would seem to be an example of competitive markets since there are many sellers operating relatively small shops, each seller takes the price of haircuts as given, and the products (haircuts) are very similar between different shops.

Question 1

How could you argue that the barbershop market is not competitive?

Select one:
a. Many barbershops may be locally-owned but are franchises of a single major corporation. Thus, the market is not competitive since it is ultimately only served by one supplier.
b. Each barbershop sells a very differentiated product to its clients since it is rare that two clients receive the exact same haircut (perfect substitute).
c. Since barbershops do not sell any physical or tangible items to customers, the prices charged are not constrained by market forces and can be unusually high or low.
d. Most barbershops only serve clients who live relatively close by. A barbershop on one side of town usually does not attract clients who live or work many miles away on the other side of town. Thus, barber shops tend to only compete with the relatively few other barbershops that are nearby.

Question 2

Is it possible that each barbershop could face a demand curve that is not perfectly elastic?

Select one:
a. No; each barbershop in a large city is indistinguishable from the others (i.e., they are perfect substitutes), and so the demand for any individual barbershop is perfectly elastic.
b. No; since clients are not willing to accept price changes for their haircuts from one month to the next (e.g., $15 haircut this month, $20 haircut next month, etc.), the price will remain constant in the long run and thus demand is perfectly elastic.
c. Yes; if they have some degree of market power (e.g., they can charge slightly higher prices since clients will not stop at every barbershop in the city to find the cheapest price), then they will not face perfectly elastic demand.
d. Yes; demand is only perfectly elastic if the demand curve is upward-sloping, and barbershop demand is downward-sloping.

Question 3

How profitable do you expect barbershops to be in the long run?

Select one:
a. Since they are usually very small, most barbershops will be unable to compete with larger firms with higher fixed and variable costs. Barbershops should expect losses in the long run.
b. Barbershops have the ability to set their own price above the market equilibrium price for a considerable length of time given their small size and the sheer number of other barbershops. Most individual barbershops will enjoy positive economic profit in the long run.
c. Improvements in hair-cutting technology, and the difficulty of new entrepreneurs entering this market, will guarantee above-normal profits for barbershops for the next few decades.
d. Even with a small amount of market power due to attracting only local clients, it is still relatively easy to enter and exit the barbershop industry. Long-run profits will likely be driven down close to zero.

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MHR 522 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Surplus Labour, Class Conflict, Monopsony

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