Question

Suppose that a delivery company currently uses one employee per vehicle to deliver packages. Each driver delivers 60 packages per day, and the firm charges $20 per package for delivery.
Required:
a. What is the MRP per driver per day?
b. Now suppose that a union forces the company to place a supervisor in each vehicle at a cost of $300 per supervisor per day. The presence of the supervisor causes the number of packages delivered per vehicle per day to rise to 60
packages per day What is the MRP per supervisor per day? By how much per vehicle per day do firm profits fall after supervisors are introduced?
c. How many packages per day would each vehicle have to deliver in order to maintain the firm's profit per vehicle after supervisors are introduced?
d. Suppose that the number of packages delivered per day cannot be increased but that the price per deliver might potentially be raised. What price would the firm have to charge for each delivery in order to maintain the firm's profit per
vehicle after supervisors are introduced?

Answer 1

Answer:

a. What is the MRP per driver per day?

• the marginal revenue product per driver = 60 packages x $20 = $1,200 per day

b. Now suppose that a union forces the company to place a supervisor in each vehicle at a cost of $300 per supervisor per day. The presence of the supervisor causes the number of packages delivered per vehicle per day to rise to 60  packages per day What is the MRP per supervisor per day? By how much per vehicle per day do firm profits fall after supervisors are introduced?

• if the drivers were already delivering 60 packages per day without the supervisor, then the addition of the supervisor doesn't change anything. So the MRP of the supervisor is $0. That means that the company's profits will decrease by $300 per day due to the supervisors.

c. How many packages per day would each vehicle have to deliver in order to maintain the firm's profit per vehicle after supervisors are introduced?

• $300 / 20 = 15 packages per day
• in order to maintain the profit per vehicle, each team of delivery man + supervisor should be able to deliver 75 packages per day.

d. Suppose that the number of packages delivered per day cannot be increased but that the price per deliver might potentially be raised. What price would the firm have to charge for each delivery in order to maintain the firm's profit per  vehicle after supervisors are introduced?

• $300 / 60 = $5
• the price of each package delivered should increase by $5 to $25 per package.