acquire.

What is the origin of these cost figures? They come from the production function and the factor payments. The

discussion of costs in the short run above, Costs in the Short Run, was based on the following production

function, which is similar to Table 7.3 except for "widgets" instead of trees.

Workers (L)

1

2

3

3.25 4.4 5.2

6

7

8

9

Widgets (Q) 0.2 0.4 0.8

1

2

3

3.5 3.8 3.95 4

TABLE 7.4

We can use the information from the production function to determine production costs. What we need to

know is how many workers are required to produce any quantity of output. If we flip the order of the rows, we

“invert” the production function so it shows

Widgets (Q) 0.2 0.4 0.8

.

1

2

3

3.5 3.8 3.95 4

Workers (L)

1

2

3

3.25 4.4 5.2

6

7

8

9

TABLE 7.5

Now focus on the whole number quantities of output. We’ll eliminate the fractions from the table:

Widgets (Q)

1

2

3

Workers (L)

3.25 4.4 5.2

4

9

TABLE 7.6
{"file_type": ".pdf", "batch_upload": true, "source_file": "downloads\\business\\economics\\Microeconomics3e.pdf", "title": "Principles of Microeconomics 3e", "upload_timestamp": "2026-02-07T15:37:44.339247", "file_name": "Microeconomics3e.pdf", "file_size_mb": 26.99, "uploaded_via": "batch_uploader", "creator": "PDFMiner", "moddate": "2022-12-07T14:23:05-06:00", "total_pages": 597, "creationdate": "2022-12-07T14:15:44-06:00", "producer": "Prince 14.2 (www.princexml.com)", "file_hash": "830b81f41611ac67a490444dbb5d6aed292224606965b06965b914443c93331a", "source": "downloads\\business\\economics\\Microeconomics3e.pdf"}