Brief Mathematical Appendix

For this example, the production possibility frontier was defined by

food=1000-(machines^2)/1000.

(As in some programming languages, ^ here denotes exponent, so (machines^2) is the square of the number of machines. The nonlinearity of this production possibility frontier reflects the assumption of "diminishing returns," a standard assumption in economics since it was introduced by Thomas Malthus. We economists were nonlinear when nonlinear wasn't cool).

This makes the total cost function

cost=machines^2/1000

and the marginal cost function

MC=machines/500.

The total benefit function is

benefit=2.3xmachines-(machines^2)/1000.

(Once again the nonlinearity reflects diminishing returns -- in this case, diminishing marginal benefits).

so that marginal benefit is

MB=2.3-machines/500.

Maximization of benefit-cost gives 575 and substitution of this number into the frontier function gives 669.375.

Copyright