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Suppose that an economy has the per-worker production function given as:

User Miraage
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Final answer:

The concept in question relates to the relationship between labor required and production output in an economy, examined through a per-worker production function and an aggregate production function. The inversion of the per-worker function helps calculate production costs based on workers' wages, while the aggregate function links inputs to GDP or GDP per capita.

Step-by-step explanation:

The topic at hand deals with understanding the relationship between the production output of an economy and the labor required to achieve that output. By analyzing a per-worker production function, we can determine the number of workers needed to produce certain quantities of products (widgets, in this instance). Flipping the order of the rows in the provided function changes it from showing Q as a function of L to instead showing L as a function of Q (L = f(Q)). This allows us to invert the production function which is helpful in cost calculation. For instance, if widget workers are being paid $10 per hour, we can calculate the cost of producing different quantities of widgets by multiplying the number of workers by the wage rate.

Looking at broader economic measures, we can also discuss the concept of an aggregate production function, which in one instance has GDP as its output and in another instance has GDP per capita as its output. An aggregate production function illustrates what inputs are necessary to produce the total output for an economy. When considering GDP per capita, the labor input is embedded within the other factors and therefore is not listed separately, which is an important distinction from the per-worker production function.

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