One reason we saw for the firms to have a large size is a large MES (the economies of scale are exhausted at a large level of output). Another reason may be the scope economies (you may want to quickly review section 4.3.1 in chapter 4 of the textbook). Use the ideas of economies of scale and economies of scope to try and explain in short Why are the BC elementary schools small, secondary schools large, and universities very large? (4)
To give you some context,
• a typical elementary school in BC probably has about 80-200 students;
• a typical secondary school in BC probably has about 800-1,500 students;
• SFU has about 30,000 students, UBC about 65,000, UVic about 20,000;
• a typical elementary school teacher teaches everything;
• a typical secondary school teacher specializes in one or two subjects;
• a typical university instructor teaches a subject (specializes in it) and conducts research.
