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WEALTH DISTRIBUTION: The manner in which wealth is divided among the members of the economy. A perfectly equal wealth distribution would mean everyone in the country has exactly the same wealth. In reality, wealth is unequally distributed. A few people have a great deal of wealth and most others have less. Any well-functioning economy, that's doing a pretty good job of satisfying consumer wants and needs, will have some degree of inequality in the distribution of wealth. This occurs because some people have done a good job of producing what people want, and thus grow wealthy. However, wealth tends to perpetuate itself, over and above what may be justified by valuable production. Along with wealth comes market control, political power, and the ability to accumulate more wealth at the expense of others.
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                           VARIABLE COST: In general, cost that changes with changes in the quantity of output produced. More specifically, variable cost is combined with the adjectives "total" and "average" to indicate the overall level of variable cost or the per unit variable cost. Variable cost depends on the amount produced. If there is no production, then there is no variable cost. Variable cost is cost that depends on the quantity produced. If production is greater, then variable cost is greater. Variable cost is affected by short-run production principles, especially the law of diminishing marginal returns.Variable InputsVariable cost usually includes the cost of using variable inputs, assorted resources that are variable in the short run, especially labor and material inputs. However, in practice, variable cost includes any and all cost that varies with the quantity of output.For example, Waldo's TexMex Taco World operates in the short run with labor (the workers) as a variable input and capital (the restaurant and equipment) as a fixed input. In this case, the cost associated with labor is a prime candidate to be a variable cost. This includes hourly wage payments to the workers and any fringe benefits paid on behalf of the workers. While labor is usually isolated as THE variable input in the short run, most short-run production has other variable inputs, too. Waldo's TexMex Taco World undoubtedly has an assortment of other variable inputs, all of which are part of variable cost--including meat, lettuce, sour cream, and jalapenos that make up the tacos; paper napkins, packaging material, and plastic utensils that customers use when consuming the tacos; and electricity and other energy sources needed to prepare the tacos. When Waldo's make more tacos, they incur a greater cost for these inputs. Total and AverageThe two most common manifestations of variable cost are total variable cost and average variable cost.- Total Variable Cost: This is the total amount of variable cost incurred in the production of a good. It combines all variable opportunity cost.
- Average Variable Cost: This is the per unit variable cost, which is calculated by dividing total variable cost by the quantity of output produced.
Recommended Citation:VARIABLE COST, AmosWEB Encyclonomic WEB*pedia, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2025. [Accessed: July 1, 2025].
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RED AGGRESSERINE
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Today, you are likely to spend a great deal of time flipping through mail order catalogs wanting to buy either a how-to book on wine tasting or a bookshelf that will fit in your closet. Be on the lookout for slow moving vehicles with darkened windows.
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The Dow Jones family of stock market price indexes began with a simple average of 11 stock prices in 1884.
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"Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. " -- Benjamin Franklin
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JLEO
Journal of Law, Economics and Organization
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