Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Georg No
Herbstsemester 2012
= t+ Ax
1 x2
= t+ f (x1 , x2 ).
(b) To verify strict concavity, it suffices to show that the Hesse matrix is negative
definite. To obtain the Hesse matrix, we first calculate the partial derivatives
(the final equalities will serve to simplify subsequent calculations):
f (x1 , x2 )
= Ax11 x2
x1
f (x1 , x2 )
1
= Ax
1 x2
x2
f (x1 , x2 )
x1
=
f (x1 , x2 )
x2
=
and then calculate the second-order partial derivatives (the first equality in each
line just introduces a more convenient notation):
2 f (x1 , x2 )
x21
2
f (x1 , x2 )
=
x22
2 f (x1 , x2 )
=
x1 x2
2 f (x1 , x2 )
=
x2 x1
( 1)
f (x1 , x2 )
x21
( 1)
f (x1 , x2 )
=
x22
=
f (x1 , x2 )
x1 x2
f (x1 , x2 )
=
x1 x2
f11 =
= ( 1)Ax12 x2 =
f22
2
= ( 1)Ax
1 x2
f12
f21
= Ax11 x21
= Ax11 x21
The function f() is a Cobb-Douglas production function with exponents that sum
to less than one. Hence, it is strictly concave and, thus, strictly quasiconcave. As
f () is a positive monotonic transformation of f()1 it follows that f () is strictly
quasiconcave2 finishing the argument.
2. Cost Minimizaton and Duality:
(a) To derive the cost function for the Cobb-Douglas production function, we need
to consider the cost minimization problem. The Lagrangian for this problem is
L(x1 , x2 , ) = w1 x1 + w2 x2 [f (x1 , x2 ) y] .
The corresponding Lagrange conditions are
w1 Ax11 x2 = 0
1
w2 Ax
=0
1 x2
y Ax
1 x2 = 0.
y =Ax
1 x2 .
1 See
Theorem 1.2 in the textbook for the definition of a positive monotonic transformation.
is easy enough to check from the definition of strict quasiconcavity. Alternatively, the result follows
from Theorems 1.2 and 1.3 in the textbook. Viewing f() as a utility function, the second part of Theorem 1.3
implies that f() represents a strictly convex preferences relation. As a positive monotonic transformation
of f() the function f () represents the same preference (Theorem 1.2). Using the other direction of the
statement in the second part of Theorem 1.3 it follows that f () is strictly quasiconcave.
3 To obtain the first of the following equations multiply the first equation above by x and then observe
1
(1)
Hence, to determine the cost function we only need to determine the value of .
Solving the first two of the rewritten Lagrange conditions for
x1 =
y
y
and x2 =
w1
w2
and substituting the result into the third of these conditions yields:
y=A
y
w1
y
w2
w /(+) w /(+)
2
A(1/(+)) y (1)/(+) .
Substituting this value for into (1) we obtain the cost function as
c(w1 , w2 , y) = Bw1 w2 y
where
= 1/( + ), =
, =
+
+
(2)
(3)
and
B = A1/(+) ( + )/(+) /(+) .
(4)
(b) As a function of (w1 , w2 ) the cost function in (2) has the same functional form as
the Cobb-Douglas production function. Because the parameters and satisfy
> 0, > 0 and + = 1, the calculations from Problem 1 (b) show that the
Hesse matrix of the second order partial derivatives with respect to (w1 , w2 ) is
negative semi-definite. This implies that the cost function is concave in (w1 , w2 ).
(c) Given a cost function as in (2), we can use (3) to determine the parameters of
the underlying Cobb-Douglas production function as
= / and = /.
4 Write
where
=A
A
w1
w2
.
+ yields
Dividing both sides by Ay
1 y 1 ,
+ = A
implying
1/(+) y (1)/(+) .
=A
by the expression from above yields the following equation.
Replacing A
Once and are known, for any given value of B we can solve (4) to detemine
A.5
3. Profit Maximization and Duality:
(a) To simplify notation when considering the profit maximization problem (in which
the focus is on the optimal choice of y) write the cost function as
c(w1 , w2 , y) = c(w1 , w2 , 1)y ,
where
c(w1 , w2 , 1) = Bw1 w2 .
The first order condition for the profit maximization problem6 is
p = c(w1 , w2 , 1)y 1 .
(5)
p1/(1) .
(6)
Rather than first substituting y(p, w1 , w2 ) into this expression and then simplifying, a better approach is to observe that we can use (5) to rewrite (6) as follows:
(p, w1 , w2 )
.
wi
Using the expression for the profit function obtained in the previous problem, the
relevant partial derivative of the profit function can be determined (use the chain
rule!) as
(p, w1 , w2 )
c(w1 , w2 , 1)
= /(1) c(w1 , w2 , 1)/(1) p/(1)
wi
wi
5 I dont give the formula for A here as it is not important. What is important is the idea that the
parameters of the production technology can be determined from the parameters of the cost function.
6 The assumption + < 1 ensures that objective function in the profit maximization problem is strictly
concave in y, implying that the solution to the first order condition is indeed the profit maximizing output.