Question

Dmitri lives in Houston and runs a business that sells guitars. In an average year, he receives $793,000 from selling guitars. Of this sales revenue, he must pay the manufacturer a wholesale cost of $430,000; he also pays wages and utility bills totaling $301,000. He owns his showroom; if he chooses to rent it out, he will receive $15,000 in rent per year. Assume that the value of this showroom does not depreciate over the year. Also, if Dmitri does not operate this guitar business, he can work as a financial advisor, receive an annual salary of $50,000 with no additional monetary costs, and rent out his showroom at the $15,000 per year rate. No other costs are incurred in running this guitar business.

Identify each of Charles's costs in the following table as either an implicit cost or an explicit cost of selling guitars.

a. The wages and utility bills that Charles pays
b. The wholesale cost for the guitars that Charles pays the manufacturer
c. The rental income Charles could receive if he chose to rent out his showroom
d. The salary Charles could earn if he worked as a financial advisor

Answer 1

Implicit costs are opportunity costs. They are the cost of the next best alternative that one could have taken from the one they took.

Explicit costs are normal accounting costs which represent the expenses involved in running a business.

a. The wages and utility bills that Charles pays. EXPLICIT COSTS.

These are normal accounting expenses so they are explicit costs.

b. The wholesale cost for the guitars that Charles pays the manufacturer. EXPLICIT COSTS.

Another cost of doing business so this is explicit as well.

c. The rental income Charles could receive if he chose to rent out his showroom. IMPLICIT COST.

By not renting out his showroom and using it instead, he is losing the rental income he could be making so this is an implicit cost.

d. The salary Charles could earn if he worked as a financial advisor. IMPLICIT COST.

Another income he could be making if he wasn't selling guitars. This make it an implicit cost.