Equilibrium of Firm Under

Perfect Competition

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What is Firm?
 A Firm is a group of people, with production tools,
located in some premises, who, with work, transform
raw materials into goods and services, and sell them
 Can also be defined as a business unit which owns,
controls and manages a plant or plants, where plant
refers to the technical unit

Firm

Commercial Firms Industrial Firms Financial Firms

(a retailer, a wholesaler, (think of a workshop, a (banks, insurance
or a large commercial plant, or a group of plants) companies, mutual
organization) funds)

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Then, What to Industry refers?
 The Firm and Industry are two different entities but
co-related
 A group of Firms producing a
homogeneous products is called
Industry and conversely we can say
a Firm is the company that operates
within the Industry to create that
product
 An Industry is the name given to a certain
type of manufacturing or retailing environment
For example, the retail industry is the industry that
involves everything from clothes to computers
 You can presume KFC as one firm, but all the fast
food restaurants and their suppliers would make up
the fast food Industry
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And What is the Perfect Competition?
 First referring to Competition which involves one Firm
trying to take away market share from another Firm and
this process is a rivalry among the Firms
And under Perfect Competition-
 There are large number of buyers and sellers of the
homogeneous product in the market
 Well-informed producers and consumers about the
market
 Only one price of a commodity in the whole market
 Free entry (for new firms) and free exit (for old firms)
 Price of a commodity is determined by the Industry and
at the determined price all the Firms can sell any
number of units of the commodity
 So under perfect competition the firm is price-taker not
a price-maker
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Now the Meaning of Firm equilibrium
 „Equilibrium‟ means a state of rest from which
there is no net tendency to move
 So the Firm‟s Equilibrium means, “the level of output
where the firm is maximizing its profits and
therefore, has no tendency to change its output”.
 In this situation either the Firm will be earning
maximum profit or incurring minimum loss i.e. it
refers to the profit maximization
 In the words of Hansen, “A Firm will be in
equilibrium when it is of no advantage to increase or
decrease its output”.

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Necessary Conditions For The Firm
Equilibrium
 Profit of a Firm is equal to the difference between
its total revenue (TR) and the total cost (TC) i.e.,
(Profit=TR-TC) and so for the equilibrium of the
Firm it should be maximum
 Marginal cost should be equal to Marginal revenue
(MC=MR)
And when these are equal profit is maximum
 Equality of MR and MC is necessary but not
sufficient, so the sufficient condition is that MC
curve should cut the MR curve from below not from
the above
 No firm has an incentive to change its behavior

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Firm Equilibrium Under Perfect Competition
In Two Time Periods
 As a matter of fact, the price of a good is determined
at a point where its demand is equal to supply and so
further it depends on the time taken by the demand
and supply to adjust themselves
 So this time element plays a vital role in determination
of price of the goods
 Acc. to Alfred Marshall - If the period is short, price
determination will be influenced more by the demand,
on the other hand, if the period is long it will be
influenced more by the supply
 So the two periods we have to study-
➢ Short Period
➢ Long Period

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Short Run Firm Equilibrium
 In Short run, the Firm output (supply) can be changed only
by the variable factors (like labor force through
overtime),
fixed factors (like machinery) can‟t be changed
 There is not enough time for new Firms to enter the
Industry.
 Further, if the demand is increased, the supply can be
increased only up to its existing production capacity
 A firm in Short Run Equilibrium may face one of these
situations
➢ Super Normal Profits
➢ Normal Profits
➢ Suffer Minimum Losses
➢ Shut Down Point
 For the analysis of these situations Short-run Average
Cost curve (SAC) will be introduced
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Super-Normal Profits : AR>SAC
 A Firm in Equilibrium earns super normal profit, when
average revenue (price per unit) determined by the
Industry is more than its short-run average cost (SAC)
 Firm equilibrium point=E, where MR (=AR) = SMC
 Equilibrium output=EM
 Since AR(EM)>SAC(AM)
Super Normal Profit
Firm is earning EA super
normal profit per unit of
SMC

Cost / Revenue
SAC
output P E

Total super normal profit

of the Firm on OM output B A
=BAxEA (OMxEA)=EABP AR=MR
=Shaded area

O M
Output 11
Normal Profits : AR=SAC
 A Firm in Equilibrium earns normal profit, when average
revenue (price per unit) determined by the Industry is
equal to its short-run average cost (SAC)
 Firm equilibrium point=E, where MR (=AR) = SMC
 Equilibrium output=EM
 At this output AR and SAC
both are equal to EM and SAC SMC
Firm is earning normal

Cost / Revenue
profit per unit of output P E

 It results in no gain in AR=MR

terms of money for an
entrepreneur as this
profit is included in the
cost of production
O M
Output
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Minimum Loss : AR<SAC
 A Firm may continue production even if it is incurring
losses because in sort run, it can‟t leave the Industry
 Obviously in this situation of loss, a Firm will be in
equilibrium at that level of output where it gets the
minimum losses i.e. when
SAC is more than AR
 At equilibrium AR=EM and
SAC=AM and also from SAC
graph AR<SAC Loss
SMC
Firm‟s per unit loss=AE

Cost / Revenue

B A
i.e. (AM-EM) Total loss
at OM level of output
=OMxAE i.e. EABP
 Even if Firm discontinues P E AR=MR
the production, it will have
to bear the loss of fixed
cost which is minimum
possible loss of a Firm O
Output M
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Shut down Point : AR<SAC : AR=SAVC
 The firm will shut down if it cannot cover average variable
costs i.e when AR=SAVC
 A firm should continue to produce as long as price is
greater than average variable cost
 Once price falls below that
point it makes sense to shut
down temporarily and save SAC
the variable costs SMC
 If prices rises to OP1 SAVC
than Firm can cover some

Cost / Revenue
B A
of its Fixed costs also
 So the minimum point of P1
SAVC is called Firm‟s AR1=MR 1
Shut down point
 The shutdown point is P E AR=MR
the point at which the
firm will gain more by Shut-down
point
shutting down than it will M
by staying in business O Output
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Long Run Firm Equilibrium
 In Long run, the Firm‟s output (supply) can be changed
by both the variable factors and fixed factors i.e. all
factors become variable
 There is enough time for new Firms to enter the
Industry
 Further, if the demand is increased, the supply can be
increased or decreased according to the demand
 Summarizing, in long run a Firm can make all sorts of
changes
 For Long run equilibrium, long run marginal cost (LMC)
is equal to MR and LMC curve cut the MR curve from
below
 In case of long run equilibrium, all the firms will earn
only normal profits
even if there are other situations of short run they
will sustain only few a times

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Contd..
 Take the case when the Firm earn super-normal profit-
➢ Then the existing Firm will increase their production
and new Firm will enter the Industry
➢ Consequently, the total supply will increase and price
fall down and further results in normal profit for the
firm
 On the contrary, if the firm is incurring losses
➢ Then some Firm will leave the Industry which will
reduce the total supply
➢ And due to decrease in supply, price will rise and once
again Firm will begin to earn normal profit
 The normal profit of a firm is also termed as zero
economic profit as this is included in the cost of
production not in the economic profit

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