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In economics, a cost function represents the minimum cost of producing a quantity of some good. The long-run cost curve is a cost function that models this minimum cost over time, meaning inputs are not fixed. Using the long-run cost curve, firms can scale their means of production to reduce the costs of producing the good.
For example, if there are increasing returns to scale in some range of output levels, but the firm is so big in one or more input markets that increasing its purchases of an input drives up the input's per-unit cost, then the firm could have diseconomies of scale in that range of output levels.
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.
In economics, average cost (AC) or unit cost is equal to total cost (TC) divided by the number of units of a good produced (the output Q): A C = T C Q . {\displaystyle AC={\frac {TC}{Q}}.} Average cost is an important factor in determining how businesses will choose to price their products.
The differentiation between long-run and short-run economic models did not come into practice until 1890, with Alfred Marshall's publication of his work Principles of Economics. However, there is no hard and fast definition as to what is classified as "long" or "short" and mostly relies on the economic perspective being taken.
The data of concern to economic statistics may include those of an economy within a region, country, or group of countries. Economic statistics may also refer to a subtopic of official statistics for data produced by official organizations (e.g. national statistical services, intergovernmental organizations such as United Nations, European Union or OECD, central banks, and ministries).
Two different types of cost are important in microeconomics: marginal cost and fixed cost.The marginal cost is the cost to the company of serving one more customer. In an industry where a natural monopoly does not exist, the vast majority of industries, the marginal cost decreases with economies of scale, then increases as the company has growing pains (overworking its employees, bureaucracy ...
The Long Run Average Cost (LRAC) curve plots the average cost of producing the lowest cost method. The Long Run Marginal Cost (LRMC) is the change in total cost attributable to a change in the output of one unit after the plant size has been adjusted to produce that rate of output at minimum LRAC.