Texts: 2.5 points
Production. Tom uses equipment that he rents for $1000 and ingredients that cost $5.19 per serving for the first 5 servings; for additional servings, he has to pay more because he has to find a new distributor and the ingredients cost $5.53. He hires workers at $20 each and finds that they produce servings according to the following schedule:
Servings 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Total Workers 0.30 0.65 1.04 1.50 2.02 2.63 3.32 4.12 5.04 6.09
a. 1 point: Calculate and graph the additional workers needed for each serving. (Use a spreadsheet! What is happening to the marginal productivity of labor as more is produced and more workers are hired? i. The more workers you hire, the less productive they will become because they may have to split tasks and divide responsibilities, so each worker will have less work to do, thus their productivity will decrease.)
b. 2 points: Calculate and graph the marginal cost of each serving. Use a spreadsheet and show your calculations! Why does the MC curve have the slope up, down, or flat that it does? What happens to the slope of the MC curve as Tom produces more and more servings? Why?