Final answer:
Products resulting from a shared manufacturing process are referred to as b) joint products. The production process for pizza involves combining various ingredients, which are the factors of production, including labor, capital, and raw materials. Understanding marginal product and the stages of production is key to determining optimal production levels.
Step-by-step explanation:
Products resulting from a shared manufacturing process are referred to as joint products. This typically occurs when the production process yields two or more products simultaneously. To provide insight into the concept, let's take the pizza making example. In the production process for pizza, the pizzaiolo (pizza maker) combines flour, water, and yeast to make dough, as well as tomatoes, spices, and water to make pizza sauce. These ingredients are considered the factors of production, which include labor (the pizzaiolo's work), capital (the tools and equipment, like the peel and oven), and raw materials (food ingredients). The dough and sauce can be seen as joint products because they are produced together and are both necessary for the final pizza product.
Once the outputs are measured, the term marginal product describes the additional output resulting from increasing one unit of variable input, such as adding an additional worker. To achieve optimal levels of production, it's crucial to understand the marginal product and the stages of production, which include increasing returns, diminishing returns, and negative returns.