Week 9 · Readings & resources

Week 9 — Readings & Resources

Principles of Microeconomics Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 9 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 10 items (4 readings and 6 videos). Allow 61–72 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (20–22 min total)

① The short run and why each worker adds less

Chapter 9, Section “Meet the law of diminishing marginal returns” · Session 1, Segment 3, “Diminishing marginal returns” · Remember: with a fixed kitchen, each added worker eventually adds less output than the one before, while total output keeps rising.

The Law (or Principle) Of Diminishing Marginal Returns (or Productivity) Explained in One Minute — One Minute Economics — a 90-second story about a restaurant that keeps adding waiters until they get in each other's way. It tracks the change in the owner's profit rather than the change in output, so as you watch, ask what the extra output of each waiter would be; that is the marginal product the chapter measures. (video, 2 min) (captions: creator)
Labor Productivity and Total Factor Productivity: A Comparison — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — the agency's plain explainer of labor productivity, output divided by hours worked, which is the same idea as the chapter's average product. Read the labor productivity section, where two trench-digging firms show how a machine, a fixed input, raises what each worker produces; skip the history and the economy-wide growth figures. (reading, 8–10 min)

② Marginal cost versus average cost

Chapter 9, Section “See why marginal cost crosses the averages at their lowest points” · Session 2, Segment 7, “Marginal and average cost” · Remember: a marginal cost below an average pulls the average down, and one above it pulls the average up.

Short Run Cost Curves — Think Econ — a seven-minute tour of the four per-unit cost curves on one graph: average fixed cost falling the whole way, marginal cost dipping and then rising, and marginal cost crossing average variable and average total cost at their lowest points. Its example numbers are its own, not the chair workshop's, so do not mix them with the chapter's table; they are not consistent with each other either, since a fixed cost of 100 does not match the 8-dollar average fixed cost it reads at six units, so follow the reasoning rather than the figures. (video, 7 min) (captions: creator)
Fixed/Variable/Total Costs and the Marginal Cost of Production Defined & Explained in One Minute — One Minute Economics — a 90-second case of a small web-design business: rent, fixed salaries, and software fees stay the same in a slow or busy month, while electricity and overtime pay rise with the work. It closes on marginal cost, the cost of one more website, which is low until the team needs overtime and then climbs. Notice its point that salaries count as fixed only because they are paid the same whatever the output. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)
Economics: Short-run Costs of Production — Economics in Many Lessons — a seven-minute slide review of the short-run cost measures and how they fit together: total cost is variable cost plus fixed cost, dividing each by output gives the per-unit averages, and marginal cost is the change in total cost from producing one more unit. It says average cost for what the chapter calls average total cost. As you watch, keep the two kinds of per-unit cost apart: an average spreads a cost over every unit made, while marginal cost asks only what the next unit adds. It mentions derivatives once and then gives the change-over-change version this course uses; it does not show where marginal cost crosses the averages, which the chapter covers. (video, 7 min) (captions: automatic)

③ Implicit costs and economic profit

Chapter 9, Section “Compare accounting profit and economic profit” · Session 2, Segment 9, “Accounting and economic profit” · Remember: accounting profit subtracts only the money paid out; economic profit also subtracts what the owner's time and money could earn elsewhere.

Explicit vs Implicit Costs: Understanding the Difference — Think Econ — explicit costs are the ones you get a receipt for; implicit costs are the opportunities you give up, such as the salary an owner forgoes to run a bakery. Its closing lunch-break example adds an explicit and an implicit cost into one economic cost. It says explicit costs show up on a balance sheet; the chapter's word for that record is the firm's books. (video, 5 min) (captions: automatic)
Revenue, Profits, and Price: Crash Course Economics #24 — CrashCourse — a lawyer who opens a pizza parlor shows a profit on the books and an economic loss once his lost lawyer's income counts; the episode then covers fixed and variable costs and average cost, gives a first look at the profit-maximizing rule, and ends with diminishing returns in a pizza kitchen and a note on sunk costs. Treat its parts on zero economic profit and the profit-maximizing rule as a preview; next week takes them up. (video, 11 min) (captions: creator)
Jargon Alert: Opportunity Cost — Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond — a one-page column on what you give up to get something, with a drive-or-fly choice that turns on the pay you would lose while driving. This builds on Week 1's work with opportunity cost. Read it for the idea that time is money, which is exactly the owner's implicit cost; its paragraph on tax rates makes one side's case in a debate about how strongly work responds to tax rates, without the other side's evidence, so read it as an argument rather than a settled result; this course does not take it up here. (reading, 5–7 min)
Nonemployer Statistics: About this Program — U.S. Census Bureau — the agency's description of businesses with no paid employees, most of them run by self-employed owners, which it says make up the majority of U.S. business establishments. Keep it in mind while completing the Week-9 module overview: when the owner is the only worker, the pay that owner gives up is an implicit cost the books never show. (reading, 4–6 min)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Calculate Your Startup Costs — U.S. Small Business Administration — the agency's business guide on listing a new firm's expenses, split into one-time and monthly costs, with a description of fixed costs as the ones that do not change with production. Notice that it counts salaries as fixed, which fits staff paid the same whatever the output; skip the break-even calculator. (reading, 10–15 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

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