Final answer:
The question seeks to determine the firm's economic profit for the previous year, by considering the forgone rent of $30,000 as an implicit cost. Economic profit is calculated by subtracting both explicit and implicit costs from the firm's total revenue.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question posed pertains to the calculation of the firm's economic profit for the previous year, continuing from Exercise 7.1. Economic profit is determined by accounting for both explicit and implicit costs. Explicit costs are out-of-pocket expenses, explicitly paid, such as wages and raw materials. Implicit costs, on the other hand, represent opportunity costs associated with a firm's use of resources that it owns and could have been put to some other use; for example, the factory land owned by the firm that could be rented out.
In the scenario provided, the implicit cost is the forgone rent of $30,000 per year that the firm could have earned from renting out the land. To calculate the economic profit, we need to subtract both explicit and implicit costs from the firm's total revenue. Without knowing the firm's total revenue and explicit costs from Exercise 7.1, we cannot calculate the exact amount. Therefore, we recognize that the firm's economic profit would be reduced by at least $30,000 due to the implicit cost of not renting out the land. If the firm's accounting profit was $100,000 (hypothetically), after considering the implicit cost of $30,000, the economic profit would be $70,000.It is important to understand that the concept of economic profit is crucial for making sound business decisions, as it provides a more comprehensive view of a firm's profitability by taking into account all associated costs.