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Economic (opportunity) cost
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A payment that must be made to obtain and retain the services of a resource; the income a firm must provide to a resource supplier to attract the resource away from an alternative use; equal to the quantity of other products that cannot be produced when resources are instead used to make a particular product.
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Explicit cost
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The monetary payment a firm must make to an outsider to obtain a resource.
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Implicit costs
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The monetary income a firm sacrifices when it uses a resource it owns rather than supplying the resource in the market; equal to what the resource could have earned in the best-paying alternative employment; includes a normal profit.
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Normal profit
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The payment made by a firm to obtain and retain entrepreneurial ability; the minimum income entrepreneurial ability must receive to induce it to perform entrepreneurial functions for a firm.
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Economic profit
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The total revenue of a firm less its economic costs (which include both explicit costs and implicit costs); also called "pure profit" and "above-normal-profit."
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Short run
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In microeconomics, a period of time in which producers are able to change the quantities of some but not all of the resources they employ; a period in which some resources (usually plant) are fixed and some are variable.
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Long run
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A period of time long enough to enable producers of a product to change the quantities of all the resources they empoly; period in which all resources and costs are variable and no resources or costs are fixed.
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Total product (TP)
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The total output of a particular good or service
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Marginal product (MP)
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The additional output produced when 1 additional unit of a resource is employed (the quantity of all other resources employed remaining constant); equal to the change in total product divided by the change in the quantity of a resource employed.
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Average product (AP)
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The total output produced per unit of a resource employed (total product divided by the quantity of that employed resource).
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Law of diminishing returns
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The principle that as successive increments of a variable resource are added to a fixed resource, the marginal product of the variable resource will eventually decrease.
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Fixed costs
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Any cost that in total does not change when the firm changes its output; the cost of fixed resources.
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Variable costs
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A cost that in total increases when the firm increases its output and decreases when the firm reduces its output.
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Total cost
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The sum of fixed cost and variable cost
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Average fixed cost (AFC)
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A firm's total fixed cost divided by output (the quantity of product produced).
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