Profit Maximisation

The process by which businesses and enterprises determine strategies to make more profits with lower expenditure is called profit maximization. It is a fundamental target of every firm and is crucial for their progress.

Read on to find detailed explanations on topics like producer’s equilibrium and how it affects the profit maximization formula.

Cost, Revenue, and Profit

The expenditure of a firm that goes into the manufacture of products or delivery of services is known as its Total Cost of Production (TC). The income of a firm from the sale of its products and services is called its Total Revenue (TR).

The difference between Total Cost of Production (TC) and Total Revenue (TR) constitutes the profit of the company. Therefore, profit, denoted by \[\pi\], can be calculated as

\[\pi = TR - TC\]

What is Profit Maximization?

The primary target of any company is typically assumed to be churning maximum profit out of their business since that is the only way for a firm to thrive.

The process by which enterprises regulate the manufacture, cost, and output levels that will call for the greatest profits is referred to as profit maximization.

Producer’s Equilibrium

In order for a business to achieve maximum profits, it has to reach a stage of equilibrium. A firm or producer is said to have attained equilibrium when its level of output gives rise to the maximum difference between total revenue and total cost, and it has no disposition to change its existing level of production. This state is a reflection of either maximum profits or minimize losses.

How can a Producer Maximize Profits in Perfect Competition?

In a perfectly competitive market, an organization can have a say over the number of units they want to manufacture and sell, provided they do so at constant prices fixed by the industry to which their commodity belongs. This way, consumers can buy as many numbers of units as they wish at an unfaltering market price, and the company has a perfectly elastic demand curve for services and products.

When a firm gets to decide the number of commodities it wants to produce, this quantity in addition to prevalent market prices of input and output is what governs mentioned enterprise’s total cost of production, total revenue, and, hence, total profits. 

There are two methods of determining profit maximization in perfect competition, as have been mentioned below. 1. Comparison Between Total Cost and Total Revenue 

As discussed earlier, the difference between total revenues and total costs constitutes the total profits of a firm. Therefore, with increasing sales of components at a given price, there will be an increase in total revenue. Total profits will keep reaching heights as long as the change in total revenue continues to exceed the change in the total cost of production.

In this scenario, what firms in perfect competition can do is figure out the exact quantity of commodities that need to be sold in order to earn maximum profits.

The same has been graphically represented to help you visualize change in total profits better.

In the above figure, the vertical axis represents total costs and total revenues in terms of $, while the horizontal axis represents the number of raspberry packs produced and sold. A perfectly competitive firm can calculate the output level for maximum profit by figuring out the point where total revenue exceeds total cost by the highest amount. 2. Comparison Between Marginal Revenue and Marginal Cost

An alternative to the afore-mentioned method of determining maximum profit is the MR MC approach.

The change in Total Cost of Production with the manufacture of an additional unit is termed as Marginal Cost (MC). It is mathematically represented as

MC = Change in total cost / Change in quantity = \[\frac{\Delta TC }{\Delta Q }\]

Similarly, the change in Total Revenue resulting from the sale of an additional unit is known as Marginal Revenue (MR). It can be calculated as:

MR = Change in total revenue / Change in Quantity = \[\frac{\Delta TR }{\Delta Q }\] 

A firm in a perfectly competitive market has a perfectly elastic demand graph, which means its MR curve is exactly similar to its demand curve. This states that every time there is a demand for an additional unit that company products meet, its revenue increases by an exact amount equal to the prevailing market price. With reference to the mentioned raspberry farm in perfect competition, with the purchase of every raspberry pack, $4 gets added to the farm's revenue, that is, MR does not vary with an increase in production units.

Marginal cost, on the other hand, goes through an obvious change with an increased quantity of production.

Following is an illustration of how the quantity of production units affects marginal revenue and marginal cost.

Here, it can be observed that marginal costs decrease at first with an increase in production. At levels where MR > MC, increased output levels add more to profit.

The ideal level of output for maximum profit is when MR = MC. 

Do You Know?

Why is profit maximized when MR = MC? This is because, at production levels of MR = MC, the difference between TR and TC is maximum, which is our requirement for producer’s equilibrium, leading to profit maximization. However, in the above table, profits begin to fall again after this level when MC > MR. Therefore, MC < MR is a necessary condition for sustained profit after this level.

Profit maximization is a crucial topic in Class 12 Commerce and comes with a bunch of complex concepts important for board exams. For further explanation on the profit maximization model, install the Vedantu app today.

The level of sales in which the profits are the highest is referred to as profit maximization. It can be assumed that if the level of the sales is high, the profits can be high as well but it is not true in all cases. The profit maximization can be calculated by-

the number of units where the Marginal Revenue (MR) is equal to the Marginal Cost (MC)

Profit Maximization in Perfect Competition

When there are many firms selling to many buyers with perfect information about the homogeneous goods, the situation of Perfect Competition arises. Under perfect competition, as none of the firms can individually influence the price of the goods that are to be purchased or sold therefore the firm is the price taker. The output levels to maximize profits are chosen to be the objective of each perfectly competitive firm. The most primary goal is to calculate the optimal level of output when the Marginal Cost (MC)= Market Price (MP) in order to maximize profit in a perfectly competitive firm. 

In a graph having competitive firm output q in the x-axis, and the price of the commodity in the y-axis, the point where the MC intersects with MR or P is the profit maximization point. In case a quantity exceeding \[q_{0}\] is produced by a competitive firm, then the MR and \[P_{0}\] would be less than MC and there would not incur any economic loss in the firm on the Marginal unit. Hence the firm by decreasing its outputs till it reaches\[q_{0}\] can increase its profits. If there is a production of a quantity less than \[q_{0}\] then the MC would be greater than MR and P₀ and in this case, profit would be incurred but not to its maximum and hence the firm could increase the profits by increasing the output till it reaches \[q_{0}\].