📚 Learning Guide
Understanding Economic Profit
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If a company reports high accounting profit but low economic profit, what does this imply about its implicit costs?

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Choose the Best Answer

A

Implicit costs are high, affecting overall profitability

B

Implicit costs are negligible and do not impact profit

C

Implicit costs are lower than explicit costs

D

Implicit costs are not considered in accounting profit

Understanding the Answer

Let's break down why this is correct

Answer

When a company has a high accounting profit but a low economic profit, it means that while the company is making a lot of money on paper, it is not doing as well when we consider all costs. Accounting profit only looks at explicit costs, which are the actual cash expenses, like rent and salaries. However, economic profit takes into account both explicit costs and implicit costs, which are the costs of missed opportunities or alternatives that the company could have pursued. For example, if a business owner could have earned $50,000 working somewhere else but chose to run their own business instead, that $50,000 is an implicit cost. This situation implies that the company has high implicit costs, which are reducing the true economic profit even though the accounting figures look good.

Detailed Explanation

High implicit costs mean the company is giving up a lot of value. Other options are incorrect because This suggests that implicit costs don't matter; This implies implicit costs are less than actual costs.

Key Concepts

Economic Profit
Implicit Costs
Accounting Profit
Topic

Understanding Economic Profit

Difficulty

medium level question

Cognitive Level

understand

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