Question: The market for coffee near Sarbucks stores has been stable for a long time, so that each store has optimized its fixed and variable costs given the demand for coffee at the store (i.e. each store is in long-run equilibrium) and has specialized so that the stores only sell coffee. All Sarbucks stores are price takers.
1. A firm in perfect competition is a price taker because
a. there are no good substitutes for its good.
b. they are profit maximizers.
c. it is very large.
d. many other firms produce identical products.
2. However, recent research indicates that coffee consumption may be harmful to health. How should a finding that coffee consumption harms health affect the demand for coffee?
3. What is the effect on complementary goods such as pastry? Substitutes like tea?
4. What is the effect of the study on Sarbucks in the short run? How do variable and fixed costs change? What happens to Sarbucks' competitors?
5. Under what condition would a perfectly competitive firm who is incurring an economic loss temporarily stay in business?
a. if the total revenue is positive
b. if the total revenue exceeds the variable cost
c. if the total revenue exceeds the fixed cost
d. if the total revenue is increasing
6. What is the effect of the study on Sarbucks in the long run?
7. When firms in a perfectly competitive market are making earning an economic profit, in the long run,
a. firms will exit the market.
b. firms will continue to earn a profit.
c. average cost will shift downward.
d. firms will enter the market.
For many years Keurig held a patent on the design of the K-Cup, which prevented other firms from making pods that would work with Keurig coffee makers. Using the diagram below:
8. What is the efficient price? _____ Quantity? _____
9. What is the price (_____) and quantity (_____) if Keurig acts as a monopolist? Is the monopoly price higher or lower than the efficient price? What happened to quantity?
10. Shade in consumer surplus, producer surplus, and deadweight loss when Keurig is a monopolist.
11. Which of the following is a characteristic of a monopoly?
a. The firm produces a product that has many close substitutes.
b. There are barriers to entry in the market.
c. The firm has no control over price.
d. The firm's demand curve is perfectly elastic.
12. Assume someone organizes all bread producers in the nation into a monopoly. Which of the following will occur?
a. Consumer surplus decreases and deadweight losses are created
b. Deadweight losses are created and economic profit increases
c. Consumer surplus decreases and economic profit increases
d. Consumer surplus decreases, deadweight losses are created, and economic profit increases
13. A monopolist can make an economic profit in the long run because of
a. the many firms that produce in the market.
b. product homogeneity.
c. barriers to entry.
d. the perfectly inelastic demand curve that it faces.