productivity. However, as the shop adds other barbers, the advantage of each additional barber is less, since

the specialization of labor can only go so far. The addition of a sixth or seventh or eighth barber just to greet

people at the door will have less impact than the second one did. This is the pattern of diminishing marginal

productivity. As a result, the total costs of production will begin to rise more rapidly as output increases. At

some point, you may even see negative returns as the additional barbers begin bumping elbows and getting in

each other’s way. In this case, the addition of still more barbers would actually cause output to decrease, as the

last row of Table 7.9 shows.

This pattern of diminishing marginal productivity is common in production. As another example, consider the

problem of irrigating a crop on a farmer’s field. The plot of land is the fixed factor of production, while the
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