Question

Ronny's Pizza House is a profit maximizing firm in a perfectly competitive local restaurant market, and their optimal output is 80 pizzas per day. The local government imposes a new tax of $250 per year on all restaurants that operate in the city. How does this affect Ronny's profit maximizing decisions?

Answer 1

A firm maximizes its accounting profits when marginal revenue = marginal costs. In this case, the $250 tax, would increase the price of pizzas by less than 1 cent per pizza since total production = 80 pizzas x 360 days = 28,800 pizzas per year. Even if the restaurant only opens 6 days a week, its total production is very close to 25,000 pizzas. So the impact of the tax is really minimum.

If Ronny (I guess that is the owner's name) really wants to keep maximizing his profits, then he should increase the price of each pizza by 1 cent. The price increase will be minimum and very few customers will probably even notice.