5. Suppose that a car dealership wishes to see if efficiency wages will help improve its salespeople’s productivity. Currently, each salesperson sells an average of one car per day while being paid $20 per hour for an eight-hour day. [LO17.8]

a. What is the current labour cost per car sold?

b. Suppose when the dealer raises the price of labour to

$30 per hour the average number of cars sold by a salesperson increases to two per day. What is now the labour cost per car sold? By how much is it higher or lower than it was before? Has the efficiency of labour expenditures by the firm (cars sold per dollar of wages paid to salespeople)

increased or decreased?

c. Suppose that if the wage is raised a second time to

$40 per hour the number of cars sold rises to an average of 2.5 per day. What is now the labour cost per car sold?

d. If the firm’s goal is to maximize the efficiency of its labour expenditures, which of the three hourly salary rates should it use: $20 per hour, $30 per hour, or $40 per hour?

e. By contrast, which salary maximizes the productivity of the car dealer’s workers (cars sold per worker per day)?