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Question 14 of 34

Q.Show how a perfectly competitive firm earns only normal profit as it attains long run equilibrium. Or Show how the price in a perfectly competitive market is affected when

(i) supply decreases with demand remaining unchanged, and
(ii) demand decreases with supply remaining unchanged.
West Bengal WbchseWBCHSE West Bengal HS (Class-12) Commerce Board 2019Subjective· 5mImportance★★★★★est
41% · 14/34 Questions
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Free entry/exit drives a perfectly competitive firm's long-run profit down to normal level; and basic shifts in supply or demand alone move price and quantity in opposite, predictable directions.

Long-run normal profit in perfect competition. In the short run, if the market price is high enough, existing perfectly competitive firms may earn supernormal (above-normal) profit. Because entry into a perfectly competitive industry is completely free, such profits attract new firms into the industry. As more firms enter, total market supply increases, and with demand unchanged, the market price is pushed down. This process of entry continues as long as supernormal profit exists, which also shifts each firm's cost structure (since the industry's input demand can also raise resource costs). Entry stops only when price falls to exactly equal the minimum point of each firm's long-run average cost (LAC) curve - at that point, price = AR = MR = LMC = minimum LAC, and every firm earns just enough to cover all its costs, including a normal return on the entrepreneur's own effort/capital, i.e., only normal profit (zero economic profit). If firms were instead making losses, exit would occur until price rose back to this same level.

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