1. What are the production costs of your economics class? What are the fixed costs? The variable costs? What's the marginal cost of enrolling more students?
2. Suppose all your friends offered to help wash your car. Would marginal physical product decline as more friends helped? Why or why not?
3. How many batteries will Tesla want to produce in its new gigafactory? (See News, p. 154.)
4. Owner/operators of small gas stations rarely pay themselves an hourly wage. How does this practice affect the economic cost of dispensing gasoline?
5. Corporate funeral giants have replaced small family-run funeral homes in many areas, in large part because of the lower costs they achieve. What kind of economies of scale exist in the funeral business? Why doesn't someone build one colossal funeral home and drive costs down further?