The Theory of the Firm Rappers (Economics)
Theory of the firm is hard! ...It's ToF to get your head around. ...Get it? 🤣🤣
There's an easy way!
You can easily memorize everything. 🧠 I'll show you here.
Background
The first year I taught IB Economics, my students really struggled with the diagrams and all of the memorization in this part of the course. And I didn't know how to help them remember it. But I love taking something hard and making it easy. So I love mnemonics and finding a structure (or a system) that you can always use to get great results. This approach is the only thing that works for me.
So, while this is obviously an Economics post, you can also take this as a lesson in how to use mnemonics to pack otherwise hard-to-remember information into your brain.
I read a lot of books on this subject to help my students (people like Cal Newport, Adam Robinson and Joshua Foer --who's book is subtitled "The Art and Science of Remembering Everything") and I've applied what I've learned here. You might want to read your Theory of the Firm textbook chapters before reading this post, because this article won’t teach you the theory. That would require a very long and detailed post.
Instead, what I want to do here is give you a powerful system to help you remember what most people struggle to: the 5 most important points in the theory of the firm. First, here are the important ToF facts that most people try to memorize, but fail to, because they don’t use a system:
A quick refresher
If a product is sold...
1) Where Marginal Revenue = 0 total, total revenue is maximized. 💵
2) Where Marginal Cost = Average Total Cost (or, you can say, where Marginal Cost = Average Cost) productive efficiency is maximized AND the firm breaks even. (2 things to memorize there, rather than just one for each of the others). 👍
3) Where Marginal Revenue = Average Variable Cost, the firm will have to shut-down. That’s their shutdown price. Well actually it’s the minimum price a firm can sell their product for before they have to shut-down --but we call it the shutdown price anyway. 😥
4) Where Marginal Cost = Average Revenue, social benefit (or allocative efficiency) is maximized.
5) Where Marginal Cost = Marginal Revenue, profit is maximized. ✨✨
I know, I know. By now you’re wishing you’d taken History instead of Econ. But you didn’t. You, my friend, are destined for greatness, so you’re just going to have to learn this and be great. Let me tell you about these 5 rappers (or MC’s as we used to call back in the day). Each of these MC’s sell their albums for a particular price.
The 5 ToF MCs
Here are their names and their personalities:
Where MR=0
They call him "Mr Zero" because he just thinks about revenue.
MR Zero doesn’t understand about costs. He just wants the biggest possible pay cheques (the most revenue). But, in the end, he doesn't end up with a lot of profit (because revenue is not the same as profit).
Why would you do that Mr Zero?! What a big zero you are Mr Zero!
Where MC=ATC
They call him "MC Average TC" because he just breaks even.
MC Average TC is just an average guy, so he’s not rich. He just breaks even every month. He should sell where MC=MC, so he could maximise profit, but he doesn't. He sells where MC=ATC, so he just breaks even --even though he's actually very productive (productive efficiency is maximised).
Where MR = AVC
Mr AVC (pronounced 'avic') shuts down the clubs. He's so bad!
MR AVC reminds everyone of havoc, which means devastation. This guy is the worst! Every time he goes to a club they know they’re going to have to shut down. That’s how bad he is.
He always says the shut-down point is just below him, but every time this guy shows up the clubs always shut down, so he has a very bad reputation in the rapping community.
Where MC=AR
MC Aral Potter (pronounced 'air-al')
This guy is all about doing what's good for society --maximising social wellbeing.
MC ARal thinks we should care more about society than profit. He's such a nice guy.
Instead of calling him AR, we call him ARal -- just MC ARal (Harold) Potter, so that we remember the "al" part. The AL part reminids us that wherever MC=AR produces, it's what's good for society (allocative efficiency), allocating resources in a way that society sees as the best way.
Where MC=MR
"MC MR Profit makes so much money!"
MC MR profit is rich. He’s clever because he always produces at the MC=MR price, so he sells at the price that makes the most amount of profit possible. What a clever dude.
So there you go
If you try to think about the diagram in terms of these rappers, their personalities and what they accomplish by selling at the price they do, you'll find it much easier to remember what the diagrams mean. For example, you can now remember that, if you if you sell your product at the price where MC=MR, you'll maximize profit, but not allocative efficiency (because you're not producing at MC=AR). And you won't maximize your revenue, despite making all that profit, because you're not selling where MR=0).
And as a free bonus...
...I'm going to spare you the rest of the work I did on this post.
I tried to make up a rap song about these guys to help you remember even easier, but I’m actually not a very good rapper. I know, surprising right?! I’m as shocked as you are. Anyway, you lucked out not having to hear it. Just imagine me, with a backwards baseball cap rapping like,
Mr Zero’s got more cash than anyone could ever handle,
Yet not as much profit as an everyday vandal.
It was bad.
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