Opportunity Cost Essay

600 Words3 Pages
Economics Help How can we measure the opportunity cost of leisure? Let us have this scenario: You will be paid $1000 if you will work on a Saturday. Many will not accept this because they cannot be with their children, cannot play golf, cannot have night out with girl friends, and other recreational activities. In this case the opportunity cost for leisure is the lost income of $1000 by not working on Saturday nights. Why is the supply curve for labor usually upward sloping? The supply curve for labor is usually upward sloping because labor is attracted when wage is high. Labor is discouraged to get the work when the wage is low. There will always be positive relationship between wage and labor. 2.In the graph below, assume that the market demand curve for labor is initially D1. Answer the following questions. [pic] a. What are the equilibrium wage rate and employment level? Wage rate is at b (dollars per unit) and the employment level is at f (quantity of labor). b. What area represents economic rent? Economic rent is area b L t c c. Assume that the price of a substitute resource decreases, other things constant. What happens to demand for labor? For example, production involves the use of human resources and machineries. Machineries are substitute resource for labor. If the price of machineries decreases, more machines will be purchased to do the work and less demand for workers. Factories usually do this to decrease the cost of labor. Another example, when the interest rate on loans decreases, companies would focus on capital intensive than labor intensive activities. In both cases, the demand for labor decreases. What are the new equilibrium wage rate and employment level? Equilibrium wage rate and employment level goes down. In the graph, equilibrium wage rate goes down to point c and the equilibrium quantity of

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