On the Schweser, Book 3, page 37.
it’s seems that there is no profit for firms in the perfect competition. The line ‘‘ATC’’, average totale cost, is always ≥ of the Price ‘‘P’’.
Anyone has an answer ? thanks
All the costs you see in the graphs are economic costs , which means that other costs than accounting costs are included. Economic costs include the opportunity cost of capital (or equivalently, the opportunity cost of investor). Therefore, by the time Marginal Cost = Price in a perfect market, the company is indeed covering the accounting costs (operation costs) and the required profit demanded by the investor for investing in that company / project.
Hope this helps.
Corrected it for ya.