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The owner-manager of Good Guys Enterprises obtains utility from income (profit) and from having the firm behave in a socially conscious manner, such as making charitable contributions or civic expenditures. Can you set up the problem and derive the optimization conditions if the owner-manager wishes to obtain a specific level of utility at the lowest possible cost? Do these conditions differ from the utility maximizing conditions?

User Kolonel
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Answer:

Explanation:

Certainly! To set up the problem, we can consider the owner-manager's utility as a function of two variables: income (profit) and charitable contributions or civic expenditures. Let's call these variables x and y, respectively.

The owner-manager utility is given by the function U(x,y), where x is the income (profit) and y is the charitable contributions or civic expenditures.

The cost of obtaining this utility is given by the function C(x,y), where x is the income (profit) and y is the charitable contributions or civic expenditures.

To find the lowest possible cost at which the owner-manager can obtain a specific level of utility, we can use the following optimization conditions:

The cost function C(x,y) should be minimized subject to the constraint U(x,y) = k, where k is the specific level of utility that the owner-manager wishes to achieve.

The first-order necessary conditions for a minimum are:

∂C/∂x = λ ∂U/∂x

∂C/∂y = λ ∂U/∂y

where λ is a Lagrange multiplier.

These conditions are known as the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions.

These optimization conditions differ from the utility-maximizing conditions in that we are minimizing the cost function instead of maximizing the utility function. In addition, we have the constraint U(x,y) = k, which means that we are trying to achieve a specific level of utility rather than trying to maximize it.

User Migu
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