A beedi making workshop can hire 5 women by paying them Rs 300 per day each. The 6th woman demands Rs 350 per day, and if she is hired, all the other women must also be paid Rs 350 per day. What is the marginal resource (labour) cost of hiring the 6th woman?

Introduction / Context:
This question comes from the area of factor pricing and labour economics. It focuses on marginal resource cost, which is the additional cost incurred by a firm when it hires one more unit of a factor such as labour. In some labour markets, especially under conditions like wage setting for a group, hiring one additional worker can force the firm to raise wages for all existing workers, making the marginal resource cost higher than the wage of the extra worker alone. Understanding this concept is crucial for analysing firm decisions in imperfect labour markets.

Given Data / Assumptions:
- The workshop currently employs 5 women.
- Each of these 5 women is paid Rs 300 per day.
- A 6th woman demands Rs 350 per day.
- If she is hired at Rs 350, then all 6 women must receive Rs 350 per day.
- We need to find the marginal resource cost of hiring the 6th woman.

Concept / Approach:
Marginal resource cost (MRC) is defined as the additional cost to the firm when it employs one more unit of the input. In a simple case with a constant wage rate, MRC equals the wage. However, in this question the wage for all workers increases when one extra worker is hired. Therefore, MRC equals the change in total wage bill, not just the wage of the new worker. The approach is to calculate the total wage bill before hiring the 6th woman, calculate the total wage bill after hiring her, and find the difference.

Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Compute the initial total wage bill when 5 women are employed at Rs 300 each. Initial wage bill = 5 * 300 = Rs 1500 per day. Step 2: If the 6th woman is hired, she must be paid Rs 350, and the wage of the original 5 women must also be raised to Rs 350 each. Step 3: Compute the new total wage bill with 6 women at Rs 350 each. New wage bill = 6 * 350 = Rs 2100 per day. Step 4: The marginal resource cost equals the increase in the total wage bill. MRC = new wage bill - old wage bill = 2100 - 1500 = Rs 600. Step 5: Therefore, the marginal resource cost of hiring the 6th woman is Rs 600 per day.

Verification / Alternative check:
Another way to see the result is to consider that the firm must pay an additional Rs 50 to each of the original 5 workers (from 300 to 350), which sums to 5 * 50 = Rs 250 extra. In addition, it pays the entire Rs 350 to the 6th worker. So total extra cost = Rs 250 (for existing workers) + Rs 350 (for new worker) = Rs 600. This matches the earlier calculation and confirms that the marginal resource cost is correctly computed as Rs 600.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Rs 50 is wrong because that is only the increment in wage rate per worker and does not consider the total effect on the wage bill for all workers.
Rs 300 is wrong because it is close to the original wage per worker and ignores the wage rise for existing employees and the higher wage for the new worker.
Rs 100 is wrong as it does not correspond to any relevant component of the cost calculation in this situation.

Common Pitfalls:
A very common mistake is to assume that marginal resource cost equals the wage rate of the additional worker, which would be Rs 350 here. Students may then try to match that with the given options and get confused. The correct method is to compute the total change in wage bill, because the wage of all existing workers also increases. Remember that marginal resource cost always refers to the change in total cost due to employing one more unit of input, and in imperfect labour markets this can be larger than the wage of that extra unit. Carefully computing before and after totals helps to avoid this trap.

Final Answer:
The marginal resource (labour) cost of hiring the 6th woman is Rs 600 per day.