Which of the following is true under monopolistic competition in the short run?
A. Profits are always zero.
B. P > MC.
C. P = MR.
D. All of the choices are true in monopolistic competition.
You are the manager of a 24-hour copy shop that is closed on Sundays. You lease a
building for $2,000 per month and hire three employees who each work eight-hour
shifts at a wage of $10.00 per hour. The markets for labor and office space are tight in
your area. To acquire the lease and hire workers, you signed contracts requiring you to
give 12 months advance notice before abandoning your lease or laying off workers (if
you fail to comply, the contracts force you to fully compensate your landlord and
workers for the income they otherwise would have earned over the 12-month period).
Paper costs you $.02 per sheet. You currently sell 500,000 color copies per year at a
price of $.10 per copy and 1,000,000 black-and-white copies per year at a price of $.05
per copy. Because of your high volume, each of your two copiers has a useful life of
only one year. You just received a call from an employee who informs you that your
color copier just broke down. The good news is that your black-and-white copier is
brand-new; the bad news is that a new color copier will cost $30,000. Should you
purchase a new color copier? Assume that customers who want color copies are
unwilling to substitute black-and-white copies.