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Katie Edwards

New Design to Reduce Solar Manufacturing Costs - 0 views

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    This article highlights the redesign of solar manufacturing so that it is cost-efficient for the company, as well as energy-efficient for the consumers. The lower-cost manufacturing is simpler by a decision to minimize some production costs by combining the design into a "single silicon wafer processing line." Clearly, it's a variable cost, and a positive change for the firm.
Monique T

P&G to lay off 1,600 non-manufacturing employees to cut costs | Economic Times - 1 views

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    This article details how the large company Proctor & Gamble is attempting to cut variable costs by eliminating jobs, which leads to lower labour costs. This action results in a lower cost for their products, leading to more productive efficiency. This competitive behaviour is also partially reflective of perfect competition, where companies must decrease costs in order to increase profits; however the article also focuses a lot on the advertising done by Proctor & Gamble, which is not fitting with the assumptions of the perfect competition model.
Katrina D

How U.S. TV Wound Up With Fewer Episodes - 0 views

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    This article talks about the effect production costs have had on the number of episodes in a season. In an attempt to be productively efficient as production costs per episodes rise, show producers have simply had to cut down the output of episodes. This makes sense because if we shift the AC curve left, the cost will decrease, but so will the output when AC=MC (productive efficiency).
Monique T

Ontario says it won't block teacher strike | The Globe and Mail - 0 views

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    One topic we have discussed a lot in supply-side policy is the funding of education, and how increased funding can lead to more efficiency in the economy. However, after the Ontario budget, the government decided to freeze teacher wages to try to reduce funding in this education sector; which has created many problems in our province as teacher unions are now taking action, with the threat of a strike still being possible. Supply-side policy gone wrong.
Monique T

Greek yogurt on a marathon-like growth spurt | Lake County News-Sun - 1 views

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    This article describes the recent growth in a number of firms producing Greek Yogurt in the United States. As a result of this growth, the firms are experiencing economies of scale and they are all expanding their factories to increase their output. As the article states: "The Chobani plant today bustles with 14 production lines mechanically squirting yogurt into plastic cups that zip down conveyor belts." - this shows a technological improvement that is an economy of scale: due to the increase in size in the firm, it can employ more efficient, lower cost methods of production.
Hannah S

Social networking for scientists - 1 views

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    This article is about how a social networking site for scientists can become more efficient as the scientific community is still very fragmented.
Monique T

Malta's power stations cost up to €126m a year in health, environment | The M... - 1 views

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    This article discusses the environmental and human health costs of power plants. These type of costs would be considered negative externalities of production, because they are harmful effects that do not effect the firm producing the power, but rather a third party, society as a whole. When producers are making the power, they value the cost as the private costs to their firms, but as outlined by this article, there are many social costs which they do not consider, and this leads to over-production, which means the market is failing, as the resources are not being allocated efficiently. An interesting aspect is that they are able to put a true "cost" on environmental and health effects, which can be quite hard to determine.
Desmond M

US gasoline demand dips on price, economy-MasterCard | Reuters - 2 views

  • retail gasoline demand fell last week from a year earlier as motorists drove less
  • due to economic uncertainty and elevated pump prices
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    This article shows how resources are allocated in a free market by pointing out that both the quantity demanded and demand for gasoline fell. The quantity demanded fell because of a higher price; demand is falling because of uncertainty (which pushes the demand curve to the left). This shows allocative efficiency because if fewer people are working it make sense that fewer people are driving because these people no longer have to drive to work. Furthermore, these people may not have the ability to drive as much anymore because of their lower income.
Monique T

Kirklees Council to consider late night street lights switch-off | BBC News - 1 views

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    Street lights are an example of a public good - one person using a street light will not prevent others from using it, and it is impossible to stop other people from using a street light once one person is able to use it. Because they are public goods, they are provided by the government, but in this case it is costing the government too much to leave the street lights on all night, so they are considering shutting them off for a portion of the night to save money.
Lola Z

Off With Their Heads! The Fantasy Google Monopoly - Forbes - 2 views

    • Lola Z
       
      Here it deals with the concept of menacing monopoly. Google isn't doing anything "evil", but it is just so comprehensive that everyone can't help to use it.
  • . Microsoft’s impressive growth of Bing in a mere two or so years shows that new competition in search can come at any time.
    • Lola Z
       
      There is actually competitor of Google. It is Microsoft's Bing.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • They rest on their laurels and do not innovate.
    • Lola Z
       
      If there is a monopoly in industry, consumers can be end up in disadvantage as the monopolist refuses to innovate and discourages other firms which can potentially innovate from entering the industry.
  • Google continues to innovate in many spheres of Internet and e-commerce activity, from mobile operating systems to books to social media.
    • Lola Z
       
      However, we can see that Google is innovating and giving consumers advantages. It is a benign monopoly.
  • Google search is a free product, supported by advertising. And that advertising is not priced by Google itself, rather through an auction among advertisers bidding on the use of search keywords. Google doesn’t control price, let alone raise prices.
    • Lola Z
       
      Here again, Google is shown to be a benign monopoly. Monopolists usually control the price freely, and raise the price as high as they can to earn profits. However, Google is free. Even if advertisers post commercials on it, the price is not set by Google.
  • Monopolists also have no incentive to reduce costs and increase efficiency, because the absence of competition assures them of selling products very profitably.
  • Google doesn’t act like a monopolist and shares none of the characteristics sheltering classic monopolists from competition. Its astounding success in Internet search is universally regarded as a consequence of better design, superior code, better products and plain old hard work.
  • an “evil” monopolist
  • Of course, it’s unlawful to monopolize a market, not to become a monopolist as a result of superior business acumen or execution.
Tim O

UK industry on the defence - 2 views

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    This video talks about how after the economic crisis a company located in England called BAE, the world's second largest military defense company who employs more than 40,000 people, talks about opportunity cost because of the resent cut backs in their contract. It talks about how England is trying to become more reliant on industry instead of finance. Lastly, it talks about the companies cuts from the government and job security because local governments have cut their spending with BAE, they are spending their money to invest into their own economy. Finally, I think it relates to scarcity because money itself is scare and government have to decide how to spend it efficiently.
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