What is the graphical representation of a perfectly competitive firm's total revenue?

Disable ads (and more) with a membership for a one time $4.99 payment

Study for the University of Central Florida ECO2023 Principles of Microeconomics Final. Prepare with multiple choice questions, flashcards with helpful hints and explanations. Ace your exam!

In a perfectly competitive market, a firm's total revenue is represented graphically by an upward sloping straight line. This is because firms in perfect competition are price takers; they sell their products at the market price, which means that as they increase their quantity of output, their total revenue increases proportionally.

Since each additional unit sold at the constant market price adds the same amount to total revenue, the relationship is linear. For example, if a firm sells its product for a price of $10 per unit, selling one unit results in $10 of revenue, selling two units results in $20, and so on. Therefore, the total revenue can be expressed as TR = P * Q, where TR is total revenue, P is the price per unit, and Q is the quantity sold. As quantity increases, total revenue escalates linearly, leading to the straight line representation on the graph.

In contrast, other options depict relationships that do not accurately reflect the behavior of total revenue in a perfectly competitive market. A downward sloping curve would suggest that as quantity increases, revenue declines, which is not the case. A horizontal line would represent a situation where total revenue does not change with changes in quantity, which again does not apply here, as