U-SHAPED COST CURVES: The family of short-run cost curves consisting of average total cost, average variable cost, and marginal cost, all of which have U-shapes. They are U-shaped because each has high but falling cost at low quantities of output, which then reaches a minimum, then has rising cost at larger quantities of output. Although the average fixed cost curve is not U-shaped, it's occasionally included with the other three just for sake of completeness. See also | average total cost | average variable cost | marginal cost | average fixed cost | average total cost curve | average variable cost curve | marginal cost curve | average fixed cost curve | short-run production | stages of production | increasing marginal returns | decreasing marginal returns | law of diminishing marginal returns | total cost | total variable cost | total fixed cost |
