6.6 Productivity and Technical Change

Because firms may use different technologies and different methods of organizing production, the amount of output that one firm produces from a given amount of inputs may differ from that produced by another. Moreover, after a technical or managerial innovation, a firm can produce more today from a given amount of inputs than it could in the past.

Relative Productivity

This chapter has assumed that firms produce efficiently. A firm must produce efficiently to maximize its profit. However, even if each firm in a market produces as efficiently as possible, firms may not be equally productive. One firm may be able to produce more than another from a given amount of inputs.

A firm may be more productive than ...

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