Microeconomics is a branch of mainstream economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics focuses on the study of individual markets, sectors, or industries as opposed to the national economy as whole, which is studied in macroeconomics.
In economics, specifically general equilibrium theory, a perfect market, also known as an atomistic market, is defined by several idealizing conditions, collectively called perfect competition, or atomistic competition. In theoretical models where conditions of perfect competition hold, it has been demonstrated that a market will reach an equilibrium in which the quantity supplied for every product or service, including labor, equals the quantity demanded at the current price. This equilibrium would be a Pareto optimum.
In economics, general equilibrium theory attempts to explain the behavior of supply, demand, and prices in a whole economy with several or many interacting markets, by seeking to prove that the interaction of demand and supply will result in an overall general equilibrium. General equilibrium theory contrasts to the theory of partial equilibrium, which analyzes a specific part of an economy while its other factors are held constant. In general equilibrium, constant influences are considered to be noneconomic, therefore, resulting beyond the natural scope of economic analysis. The noneconomic influences is possible to be non-constant when the economic variables change, and the prediction accuracy may depend on the independence of the economic factors.
In microeconomics, economic efficiency, depending on the context, is usually one of the following two related concepts:
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to industrial organization:
In economics, the marginal cost is the change in the total cost that arises when the quantity produced is incremented, the cost of producing additional quantity. In some contexts, it refers to an increment of one unit of output, and in others it refers to the rate of change of total cost as output is increased by an infinitesimal amount. As Figure 1 shows, the marginal cost is measured in dollars per unit, whereas total cost is in dollars, and the marginal cost is the slope of the total cost, the rate at which it increases with output. Marginal cost is different from average cost, which is the total cost divided by the number of units produced.
A production–possibility frontier (PPF), production possibility curve (PPC), or production possibility boundary (PPB), or transformation curve/boundary/frontier is a curve which shows various combinations of the amounts of two goods which can be produced within the given resources and technology/a graphical representation showing all the possible options of output for two products that can be produced using all factors of production, where the given resources are fully and efficiently utilized per unit time. A PPF illustrates several economic concepts, such as allocative efficiency, economies of scale, opportunity cost, productive efficiency, and scarcity of resources.
In economics, a production function gives the technological relation between quantities of physical inputs and quantities of output of goods. The production function is one of the key concepts of mainstream neoclassical theories, used to define marginal product and to distinguish allocative efficiency, a key focus of economics. One important purpose of the production function is to address allocative efficiency in the use of factor inputs in production and the resulting distribution of income to those factors, while abstracting away from the technological problems of achieving technical efficiency, as an engineer or professional manager might understand it.
Welfare economics is a branch of economics that uses microeconomic techniques to evaluate well-being (welfare) at the aggregate (economy-wide) level.
In economics and particularly in consumer choice theory, the substitution effect is one component of the effect of a change in the price of a good upon the amount of that good demanded by a consumer, the other being the income effect.
In economics, diminishing returns is the decrease in marginal (incremental) output of a production process as the amount of a single factor of production is incrementally increased, holding all other factors of production equal. The law of diminishing returns states that in productive processes, increasing a factor of production by one unit, while holding all other production factors constant, will at some point return a lower unit of output per incremental unit of input. The law of diminishing returns does not cause a decrease in overall production capabilities, rather it defines a point on a production curve whereby producing an additional unit of output will result in a loss and is known as negative returns. Under diminishing returns, output remains positive, however productivity and efficiency decrease.
An isoquant, in microeconomics, is a contour line drawn through the set of points at which the same quantity of output is produced while changing the quantities of two or more inputs. The x and y axis on an isoquant represent two relevant inputs, which are usually a factor of production such as labour, capital, land, or organisation. An isoquant may also be known as an “Iso-Product Curve”, or an “Equal Product Curve”.
In economics, an isocost line shows all combinations of inputs which cost the same total amount. Although similar to the budget constraint in consumer theory, the use of the isocost line pertains to cost-minimization in production, as opposed to utility-maximization. For the two production inputs labour and capital, with fixed unit costs of the inputs, the equation of the isocost line is
In economics, a cost curve is a graph of the costs of production as a function of total quantity produced. In a free market economy, productively efficient firms optimize their production process by minimizing cost consistent with each possible level of production, and the result is a cost curve. Profit-maximizing firms use cost curves to decide output quantities. There are various types of cost curves, all related to each other, including total and average cost curves; marginal cost curves, which are equal to the differential of the total cost curves; and variable cost curves. Some are applicable to the short run, others to the long run.
In economics, a conditional factor demand is the cost-minimizing level of an input such as labor or capital, required to produce a given level of output, for given unit input costs of the input factors. A conditional factor demand function expresses the conditional factor demand as a function of the output level and the input costs. The conditional portion of this phrase refers to the fact that this function is conditional on a given level of output, so output is one argument of the function. Typically this concept arises in a long run context in which both labor and capital usage are choosable by the firm, so a single optimization gives rise to conditional factor demands for each of labor and capital.
Constant elasticity of substitution (CES), in economics, is a property of some production functions and utility functions. Several economists have featured in the topic and have contributed in the final finding of the constant. They include Tom McKenzie, John Hicks and Joan Robinson. The vital economic element of the measure is that it provided the producer a clear picture of how to move between different modes or types of production.
In microeconomic theory, the marginal rate of technical substitution (MRTS)—or technical rate of substitution (TRS)—is the amount by which the quantity of one input has to be reduced when one extra unit of another input is used, so that output remains constant.
Production is the process of combining various material inputs and immaterial inputs in order to make something for consumption (output). It is the act of creating an output, a good or service which has value and contributes to the utility of individuals. The area of economics that focuses on production is referred to as production theory, which is intertwined with the consumption theory of economics.
In economics, the marginal product of labor (MPL) is the change in output that results from employing an added unit of labor. It is a feature of the production function, and depends on the amounts of physical capital and labor already in use.
The Theory of Wages is a book by the British economist John R. Hicks published in 1932. It has been described as a classic microeconomic statement of wage determination in competitive markets. It anticipates a number of developments in distribution and growth theory and remains a standard work in labour economics.
