In November 2020, the debate between 2 business executives, Jeff and Lisa was about what to do to prices when fixed costs increase due to COVID-19 measures (for example, the installation of acrylic office partition screens, purchase of hand sanitizers and the like).

Jeff's argument was that these costs must be passed on to consumers.Lisa argued to the contrary. She said that an increase in these costs should not lead companies to change prices as that neither affects marginal cost nor marginal revenue, at least if the intial price was the profit-maximizing one.

A few days later, Jeff sent an email with a hypothetical table(below) that proved that an increase in fixed cost should impact the optimal price.

Starting situation Situation B1: Situation B2: A no price change price increase Fixed cost 100 120 120 Variable cost 10 10 10 Price 12 12 13 Volume 1000 1000 900 Revenues 12000 12000 11700 Total cost 10100 10120 9120 Total profit 1900 1880 2580