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PRICE CEILING: A legally established maximum price. The government is occasionally inclined to keep the price of one good or another from rising too high. Examples include apartments, gasoline, and natural gas. While the goal is invariably a noble one--like keeping stuff affordable for poor people--a price ceiling often does more harm than good. First, it usually creates a shortage, meaning that many of the buyers who being protected against high prices, can't even buy the good. Second, as a consequence of this shortage, a price ceiling is likely to generate a black market where the good is sold illegally above the price ceiling.
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                           AVERAGE FIXED COST CURVE: A curve that graphically represents the relation between average fixed cost incurred by a firm in the short-run product of a good or service and the quantity produced. This curve is constructed to capture the relation between average fixed cost and the level of output, holding other variables, like technology and resource prices, constant. The average fixed cost curve is one of three average curves. The other two are average total cost curve and average variable cost curve. A related curve is the marginal cost curve. Average Fixed Cost Curve |  | The average fixed cost curve is negatively sloped. Average fixed cost is relatively high at small quantities of output, then declines as production increases. The more production increases, the more average fixed cost declines. The reason behind this perpetual decline is that a given FIXED cost is spread over an increasingly larger quantity of output.The graph to the right is the average fixed cost curve for the short-run production of Wacky Willy Stuffed Amigos (those cute and cuddly armadillos and tarantulas). The quantity of Stuffed Amigos production, measured on the horizontal axis, ranges from 0 to 10 and the average fixed cost incurred in the production of Stuffed Amigos, measured on the vertical axis, ranges from a high of $6 to a low of $0.30. Actually, if the quantity is extended beyond 10 Stuffed Amigos, then average fixed cost is less than $0.30. Or if the quantity is reduced below 1/2 unit, then average fixed cost is greater than $6. For the geometrically inclined, this average fixed cost curve is a rectangular hyperbola. This declining average fixed cost curve is a major reason that the average total curve is negatively sloped for relatively small output quantities. In fact, firms that use a lot of fixed inputs relative to variable inputs, such that fixed cost is a substantial share of total cost, spend a lot of their production time in the decreasing portion of the average total cost curve. This has a big impact on how these firms operate. If average total cost declines with additional production, then a firm can profitably charge a lower price with increased output.
 Recommended Citation:AVERAGE FIXED COST CURVE, AmosWEB Encyclonomic WEB*pedia, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2025. [Accessed: July 9, 2025]. Check Out These Related Terms... | | | | | | | | | | | | | Or For A Little Background... | | | | | | | | | | | | And For Further Study... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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YELLOW CHIPPEROON [What's This?]
Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time strolling through a department store trying to buy either a looseleaf notebook binder or hand lotion, a big bottle of hand lotion. Be on the lookout for slow moving vehicles with darkened windows. Your Complete Scope
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In the late 1800s and early 1900s, almost 2 million children were employed as factory workers.
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"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. " -- Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader
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SIPP Survey of Income and Program Participation
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