Edison's Performance Pizza is a small restaurant in New York City that sells gluten-free pizzas. Edison's very tiny kitchen has barely enough room for the two ovens in which his workers bake the pizzas. Edison signed a lease obligating him to pay the rent for the two ovens for the next year. Because of this, and because Edison's kitchen cannot fit more than two ovens, Edison cannot change the number of ovens he uses in his production of pizzas in the short run.
1) However, Edison's decision regarding how many workers to use can vary from week to week because his workers tend to be students. Each Monday, Edison lets them know how many workers he needs for each day of the week. In the short run, these workers are _(variable/fixed) inputs, and the ovens are _(variable/fixed) inputs.
2) Edison's daily production schedule is presented in the following table.
Fill in the blanks to complete the Marginal Product of Labor column for each worker.

Number of Workers Output Marginal Product of Labor
(Pizzas) (Pizzas)
0 0
1 50
2 90
3 120
4 140
5 150

1) A variable input is a resource or factor of production which can be changed in the short run by a firm as it seeks to change the quantity of output produced. Since Edison has to indicate the number of workers to bake the pizzas every Monday, this is a variable that changes every Monday, so the workers are variable inputs.

A fixed input is a factor of production which cannot be changed in the short run by a firm as it seeks to change the quantity of output produced. It has been stated that Edison cannot change the number of ovens he uses in his production of pizzas in the short run. So the ovens are fixed inputs.

2) The marginal product of labor (MPL) is the change in output that results from employing an added unit of labor.

Number of Workers Output Marginal Product of Labor

(Pizzas) (Pizzas)

0 0

1 50 50

2 90 40

3 120 30

4 140 20

5 150 10