1. Explain the social and the economic repercussions of the following invention: the jet airplane, the typewriter, penicillin, television. Which do you think is greater in each case- the social or the economic impact?
2. Assume that you have a business in which you hire five workers, to whom you pay $4 an hour; assume further that you have overhead costs of $100 a day and that you pay $1 in materials cost for each item that your business manufactures. Assuming that you keep all five workers, what is your average cost per unit of output if your plant turns out 10 items per 8-hour day? 100 items? 1,000?
3. Explain which is more economical, a plant with a payroll of $400 a week, with $100 of overhead a week, and with an output of 100 units per week, or a plant with a payroll of $80,000 a week, an overhead of $100,000 a week, and an output of 50,000 units per week?
4. Discuss how do you explain economies of large-scale production? Explain why do certain businesses, such as cigarette manufacture, seem to enjoy them, whereas other businesses, such as barbering, do not?
5. Evaluate the situations of a farmer selling his wheat crop and an auto company executive selling his car "crop." Determine the mayor forces that bear on each, when it comes to pricing output?