Fixed cost in the context of "Solvency"

A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructure costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming advantage over potential competitors. Specifically, an industry is a natural monopoly if a single firm can supply the entire market at a lower long-run average cost than if multiple firms were to operate within it. In that case, it is very probable that a company (monopoly) or a minimal number of companies (oligopoly) will form, providing all or most of the relevant products and/or services. This frequently occurs in industries where capital costs predominate, creating large economies of scale in relation to the size of the market; examples include public utilities such as water services, electricity, telecommunications, mail, etc. Natural monopolies were recognized as potential sources of market failure as early as the 19th century; John Stuart Mill advocated government regulation to make them serve the public good.

In theories of competition in economics, a barrier to entry, or an economic barrier to entry, is a fixed cost that must be incurred by a new entrant, regardless of production or sales activities, into a market that incumbents do not have or have not had to incur.Because barriers to entry protect incumbent firms and restrict competition in a market, they can contribute to distortionary prices and are therefore most important when discussing antitrust policy. Barriers to entry often cause or aid the existence of monopolies and oligopolies, or give companies market power.Barriers of entry also have an importance in industries. First of all it is important to identify that some exist naturally, such as brand loyalty.Governments can also create barriers to entry to meet consumer protection laws, protecting the public. In other cases it can also be due to inherent scarcity of public resources needed to enter a market.

In economics, marginal cost (MC) is the change in the total cost that arises when the quantity produced is increased, i.e. the cost of producing additional quantity. In some contexts, it refers to an increment of one unit of output, and in others it refers to the rate of change of total cost as output is increased by an infinitesimal amount. As Figure 1 shows, the marginal cost is measured in dollars per unit, whereas total cost is in dollars, and the marginal cost is the slope of the total cost, the rate at which it increases with output. Marginal cost is different from average cost, which is the total cost divided by the number of units produced.

At each level of production and time period being considered, marginal cost includes all costs that vary with the level of production, whereas costs that do not vary with production are fixed. For example, the marginal cost of producing an automobile will include the costs of labor and parts needed for the additional automobile but not the fixed cost of the factory building, which does not change with output. The marginal cost can be either short-run or long-run marginal cost, depending on what costs vary with output, since in the long run even building size is chosen to fit the desired output.

The unit cost is the price incurred by a company to produce, store and sell one unit of a particular product. Unit costs include all fixed costs and all variable costs involved in production. Cost unit is a form of measurement of volume of production or service.

In economics, total cost (TC) is the minimum financial cost of producing some quantity of output. This is the total economic cost of production and is made up of variable cost, which varies according to the quantity of a good produced and includes inputs such as labor and raw materials, plus fixed cost, which is independent of the quantity of a good produced and includes inputs that cannot be varied in the short term such as buildings and machinery, including possibly sunk costs.

Total cost in economics includes the total opportunity cost (benefits received from the next-best alternative) of each factor of production as part of its fixed or variable costs.

In business, an overhead or overhead expense is an ongoing expense of operating a business. Overheads are the expenditure which cannot be conveniently traced to or identified with any particular revenue unit, unlike operating expenses such as raw material and labor. Overheads cannot be immediately associated with the products or services being offered, and so do not directly generate profits. However, they are still vital to business operations as they provide critical support for the business to carry out profit-making activities. One example would be the rent for a factory, which allows workers to manufacture products which can then be sold for a profit. Such expenses are incurred for output generally and not for particular work order; e.g., wages paid to watch and ward staff, heating and lighting expenses of factory, etc. Overheads are an important cost element, alongside direct materials and direct labor.

Overheads are often related to accounting concepts such as fixed costs and indirect costs.

Artificial scarcity is scarcity of items despite the technology for production or the sufficient capacity for sharing. The most common causes are monopoly pricing structures, such as those enabled by laws that restrict competition or by high fixed costs in a particular marketplace. The inefficiency associated with artificial scarcity is formally known as a deadweight loss.

Variable costs are costs that change as the quantity of the good or service that a business produces changes. Variable costs are the sum of marginal costs over all units produced. They can also be considered normal costs. Fixed costs and variable costs make up the two components of total cost. Direct costs are costs that can easily be associated with a particular cost object. However, not all variable costs are direct costs. For example, variable manufacturing overhead costs are variable costs that are indirect costs, not direct costs. Variable costs are sometimes called unit-level costs as they vary with the number of units produced.

Some writers also refer to "mixed costs" or semi-variable costs, which are partially fixed and partially variable, such as electricity costs with a standing charge (fixed) and a charge based on usage (variable).