Why does diminishing marginal returns happen




















Factory X is humming along, making their cogs and gizmos. Then the factory manager decides if they add one person to the one-person cog team.

Now there are two people making profits, and their profits should double. And there are your diminishing returns. At some point, there will be less profit for the same increases.

Build a professional resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Stage one: Increasing returns. In this stage, changing one thing can improve your returns. Adding one person to the one-person team can be more efficient and increase the amount of cogs that Factory X can produce. Stage two: Diminishing returns. Using the most of the set factors possible and producing the most product.

This is the point where you can record diminishing returns. Remember, nothing else changed, except for the addition of more people. Stage three: Negative returns. Here you can see that adding an employee but changing nothing else can boost your production. More people can work faster and get more done and out the door. Keep adding people, and suddenly nobody can move or get their job done, and your production drops dramatically. If you learn about them both at once, it can help tremendously.

Economies of scale. This is the cost savings a company gets when they have an efficient production process. Think of it this way. They get discounts on the yarn because they buy in bulk. They can afford to pay many people to make these sweaters. They may also start talking with each other rather than working on tables. A firm may hire an additional worker to satisfy demand, but they may not cover the full output that the employee is capable of.

For example, an employee may be able to produce 10 units, but there is only demand for 5. Therefore, the employee only produces 5, resulting in diminishing returns.

We may see this in local stores which see a low footfall. On occasion, employing more people can disrupt others. For example, squeezing more workers into the same office may create an uncomfortable atmosphere. Similarly, bringing in a new piece of machinery might create unintended consequences. For instance, it may alter the room temperate, thereby affect the quality of other products. The law of Diminishing Marginal Returns can only occur in the short-run.

This is because all factors are variable in the long-run. For example, having an additional worker in the cafe may create for a chaotic environment. However, the employees may learn to work more efficiently together and therefore produce better returns in the long-term. Farms are a classic example of Diminishing Marginal Returns, as they have a specific acreage to harvest. Only 4 employees are needed, so anything more would bring about Diminishing Returns. There is also the case for fertiliser use which can help boost growth.

Too much fertiliser can start to kill the farms crops, whilst just enough can help increase output. In Education, students tend to spend roughly 5 to 6 hours in a classroom. Others may spend 2 hours revising every night. However, there is a certain point where students continue to revise but do not digest the information. For example, if student X spends 12 hours straight revising, those last few hours are unlikely to produce any positive results. When a company's production process expands over several production facilities in multiple locations, keeping the whole production operation efficient and well-coordinated can lead to higher expenses than limiting production up to a certain point.

Keeping control of large numbers of employees across multiple facilities can be inefficient and expensive. Therefore, expanding production may sometimes affect efficiency up to the point when the overall profit actually decreases. Expanding the production process may lead to a loss of motivation and a decrease in employee morale. When employees experience difficulty connecting to their company, the result may be a decrease in productivity that makes an increase in production more expensive.

The law of diminishing returns and the diseconomies of scale are similar in the sense that they are both ways in which an organization can decrease its production efficiency when the input increases. However, the two concepts are significantly different, as the law of diminishing returns refers to a decrease in production output as a result of an increase in only one input, while diseconomies of scale refer to an increase in cost per unit as a result of an increase in output.

Another major difference between the law of diminishing returns and the diseconomies of scale is that the first can typically only occur in the short term, while the second is an issue that can take a long time to happen.

Related: 18 Top Economics Degree Jobs. These are a few examples that show how the law of diminishing marginal returns works in real-life situations:. A factory machine requires two employees to operate and is capable of running for 24 hours each day. The company hires four people in full-time positions: two to work the eight-hour first shift and two to work the eight-hour second shift.

This means the machine produces the goods it's supposed to for two shifts, meaning 16 hours per day. Hiring an additional two people to work the eight-hour third shift increases the returns of the machine by using it to its maximum capacity, which is 24 hours each day.

From this point on, hiring any extra employees to work the machine will only decrease the machine's efficiency, since the production cannot physically be increased. An auto shop has two technicians that are each capable of changing the oil on 25 cars per day, resulting in a total output of 50 oil changes per day.

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Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Your Money. Personal Finance. Your Practice. Popular Courses. Financial Ratios Guide to Financial Ratios. Key Takeaways The law of diminishing marginal returns states that adding an additional factor of production results in smaller increases in output.



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