Professor Smith and Professor Jones are going to produce a new introductory textbook. As true scientists, they have laid out the production function for the book as q 5 S1/2 J

1/2

, where q is the number of pages in the finished book, S is the number of working hours spent by Smith, and J is the number of hours spent working by Jones.

After having spent 900 hours preparing the first draft, time which he valued at $3 per working hour, Smith has to move on to other things and cannot contribute any more to the book. Jones, whose labor is valued at $12 per working hour, will revise Smith’s draft to complete the book.

a. How many hours will Jones have to spend to produce a finished book of 150 pages? Of 300 pages? Of 450 pages?

b. What is the marginal cost of the 150th page of the finished book? Of the 300th page? Of the 450th page?