Profit (economics)

In economics, profit is the difference between revenue that an economic entity has received from its outputs and total costs of its inputs, also known as "surplus value". It is equal to total revenue minus total cost, including both explicit and implicit costs.

It is different from accounting profit, which only relates to the explicit costs that appear on a firm's financial statements. An accountant measures the firm's accounting profit as the firm's total revenue minus only the firm's explicit costs. An economist includes all costs, both explicit and implicit costs, when analyzing a firm. Therefore, economic profit is smaller than accounting profit.

Normal profit is often viewed in conjunction with economic profit. Normal profits in business refer to a situation where a company generates revenue that is equal to the total costs incurred in its operation, thus allowing it to remain operational in a competitive industry. It is the minimum profit level that a company can achieve to justify its continued operation in the market where there is competition. In order to determine if a company has achieved normal profit, they first have to calculate their economic profit. If the company's total revenue is equal to its total costs, then its economic profit is equal to zero and the company is in a state of normal profit. Normal profit occurs when resources are being used in the most efficient way at the highest and best use. Normal profit and economic profit are economic considerations while accounting profit refers to the profit a company reports on its financial statements each period.

Economic profits arise in markets which are non-competitive and have significant barriers to entry, i.e. monopolies and oligopolies. The inefficiencies and lack of competition in these markets foster an environment where firms can set prices or quantities instead of being price-takers, which is what occurs in a perfectly competitive market. In a perfectly competitive market when long-run economic equilibrium is reached, economic profit would become non-existent, because there is no incentive for firms either to enter or to leave the industry.

Companies do not make any economic profits in a perfectly competitive market once it has reached a long run equilibrium. If an economic profit was available, there would be an incentive for new firms to enter the industry, aided by a lack of barriers to entry, until it no longer existed. When new firms enter the market, the overall supply increases. Furthermore, these intruders are forced to offer their product at a lower price to entice consumers to buy the additional supply they have created and to compete with the incumbent firms (see Monopoly profit § Persistence). As the incumbent firms within the industry face losing their existing customers to the new entrants, they are also forced to reduce their prices. Therefore, increased competition reduces price and cost to the minimum of the long run average costs. At this point, price equals both the marginal cost and the average total cost for each good production. Once this has occurred a perfect competition exists and economic profit is no longer available. When this occurs, economic agents outside the industry find no advantage to entering the market, as there is no economic profit to be gained. Then, the supply of the product stops increasing, and the price charged for the product stabilizes, settling into an equilibrium.

The same is likewise true of the long run equilibria of monopolistically competitive industries, and more generally any market which is held to be contestable. Normally, a firm that introduces a differentiated product can initially secure temporary market power for a short while (See Monopoly Profit § Persistence). At this stage, the initial price the consumer must pay for the product is high, and the demand for, as well as the availability of the product in the market, will be limited. In the long run however, when the profitability of the product is well established, and because there are few barriers to entry, the number of firms that produce this product will increase. Eventually, the supply of the product will become relatively large, and the price of the product will reduce to the level of the average cost of production. When this finally occurs, all economic profit associated with producing and selling the product disappears, and the initial monopoly turns into a competitive industry. In the case of contestable markets, the cycle is often ended with the departure of the former "hit and run" entrants to the market, returning the industry to its previous state, just with a lower price and no economic profit for the incumbent firms.

Economic profit can, however, occur in competitive and contestable markets in the short run, since short run economic profits attract new competitors and prices fall. Economic loss forces firms out of the industry and prices rise till marginal revenue equals marginal cost, then reach long run equilibrium. As a result of firms jostling for market position. Once risk is accounted for, long-lasting economic profit in a competitive market is thus viewed as the result of constant cost-cutting and performance improvement ahead of industry competitors, allowing costs to be below the market-set price.

Economic profit is much more prevalent in uncompetitive markets such as in a perfect monopoly or oligopoly situation, where few substitutes exit. In these scenarios, individual firms have some element of market power. Although monopolists are constrained by consumer demand, they are not price takers, but instead either price or quantity setters. Due to the output effect and the price effect, marginal revenue for uncompetitive markets is very different from marginal revenue for competitive firms. In the output effect, more output is sold, quantity sold is higher. In the price effect, this reduces the prices firms charge for every unit they sell, and cut in price reduces revenue on the units it was already selling. Therefore, in uncompetitive market, marginal revenue is less than its price. This allows the firm to set a price which is higher than that which would be found in a similar but more competitive industry, allowing the firms to maintain an economic profit in both the short and long run.