Assignment:
The marginal product of any input in the production process is the increase in the quantity of output produced from one additional unit of that input. According to the Law of Diminishing Returns, the marginal product of an input declines as the quantity of the input increases over time, other factors remaining the same.
In the workplace, you often see diminishing marginal product, where the additional output produced per worker drops as they perform their jobs over time.
• As a manager, what are some practical things you could do to raise marginal product per employee that also benefit the firm? In your answer use a company you currently work for or one you worked for in the past.
• Give specific examples and discuss how diminishing marginal productivity affect marginal revenues and profits of firms.
Q1: Utility is a satisfaction that an individual derives from consuming or using a specific good or service. Total utility indicates the total amount of satisfaction or pleasure an individual derives from consuming some specific quantity of a good or service. Marginal utility refers to the additional satisfaction a consumer gets from an additional unit of a good or service she/he consumes during a given period of time.
The law of diminishing marginal utility states that as a consumer consumes more and more units of a specific good or service, the additional utility the consumer derives from the successive units keep on diminishing (declining) over time.
Diminishing marginal utility explains a lot about consumer behavior in the economy. Select a specific consumer behavior and construct a "mini case study" that highlights the workings of marginal utility and how it affects the consumption pattern.
Q2: There are four key types of market structures in the market economy: perfect competition, monopoly, oligopoly, and monopolistic competition. Each of the market structures has its own key distinguishing features. The marketing strategies of firms also differ from market structure to market structure.
1. Pick a specific industry from one of the market structures and explain how it would function and maximize profit.
2. Which market structures do you think benefit consumers more than others? Explain by using examples.
3. We are daily exposed to a number of advertisements on TV, in radio and in other places. Which market structures are the most dominant in the advertisement industry? Why?