Short Run and Long Run

A2 Markets & Market Systems Short Run and Long Run Production

As part of our introduction to the theory of the firm, we first consider the nature of the production of different goods and services in the short and long run. The concept of a production function is a mathematical expression which relates the number of factor inputs to the number of outputs that result. We make use of three measures of production/productivity. Total product is simply the total output that is generated from the factors of production employed by a business. In most manufacturing industries such as motor vehicles, freezers and DVD players, it is straightforward to measure the volume of production from labour and capital inputs that are used. But in many service or knowledge-based industries, where much of the output is “intangible” or perhaps weightless we find it harder to measure productivity. Average product is the total output divided by the number of units of the variable factor of production employed (e. g. output per worker employed or output per unit of capital employed). Marginal product is the change in the total product when an additional unit of the variable factor of production is employed. For example, the marginal product would measure the change in output that comes from increasing the employment of labour by one person, or by adding one more machine to the production process in the short run.

The Short Run Production

Function

The short-run is defined in economics as a period of time where at least one factor of production is assumed to be in fixed supply i. e. it cannot be changed. We normally assume that the quantity of capital inputs (e. g. plant and machinery) is fixed and that production can be altered by suppliers through changing the demand for variable inputs such as labour, components, raw materials and energy inputs. Often the amount of land available for production is also fixed. The time periods used in textbook economics are somewhat arbitrary because they differ from industry to industry. The short-run for the electricity generation industry or the telecommunications sector varies from that appropriate for newspaper and magazine publishing and small-scale production of foodstuffs and beverages. Much depends on the time scale that permits a business to alter all of the inputs that it can bring to production. In the short run, the law of diminishing returns states that as we add more units of a variable input (i. e. labour or raw materials) to fixed amounts of land and capital, the change in total output will at the first rise and then fall. Diminishing returns to labour occurs when the marginal product of labour starts to fall. This means that total output will still be rising – but increasing at a decreasing rate as more workers are employed. As we shall see in the following numerical example, eventually a decline in the marginal product leads to a fall in the average product. What happens to marginal product is linked directly to the productivity of each extra worker employed. At low levels of labour input, the fixed factors of production – land and capital, tend to be under-utilised which means that each additional worker will have plenty of capital to use and, as a result, the marginal product may rise.

Beyond a certain point, however, the fixed factors of production become scarcer and new workers will not have as much capital to work with so that the capital input becomes diluted among a larger workforce. As a result, the marginal productivity of each worker tends to fall – this is known as the principle of diminishing returns. An example of the concept of diminishing returns is shown below. We assume that there is a fixed supply of capital (e. g. 20 units) available in the production process to which extra units of labour are added from one person through to eleven. Initially, the marginal product of labour is rising.  It peaks when the sixth worked is employed when the marginal product is 29.  The marginal product then starts to fall. Total output is still increasing as we add more labour but at a slower rate. The average product will continue to rise as long as the marginal product is greater than the average – for example when the seventh worker has added the marginal gain in output is 26 and this drags the average up from 19 to 20 units. Once the marginal product is below the average as it is with the ninth worker employed (where the marginal product is only 11) then the average will decline. This marginal-average relationship is important in understanding the nature of short-run cost curves. It is worth going through this again to make sure that you understand it.

Criticisms of the Law of Diminishing

realistic is this notion of diminishing returns? Surely ambitious and successful businesses do what they can to avoid such a problem emerging. It is now widely recognised that the effects of globalisation, and in particular the ability of trans-national corporations to source their factor inputs from more than one country and engage in rapid transfers of business technology and other information, makes the concept of diminishing returns less relevant in the real world of business. You may have read about the expansion of “out-sourcing” as a means for a business to cut their costs and make their production processes as flexible as possible. In many industries as a business expands, it is more likely to experience increasing returns. After all, why should a multinational business spend huge sums on expensive research and development and investment in capital machinery if a business cannot extract increasing returns and lower unit costs of production from these extra inputs? Long-run production – returns to scale in the long run, all factors of production are variable.