Golden Mining Company is a monopsony and can hire any number of female workers or male workers it wishes. The supply curve for women is given by
and for men by
where wf and wm are the hourly wage rates paid to female and male workers, respectively. Assume that Golden Mining is a price-taker in the international gold market, the price of gold is €35 per gram and that each worker hired (both men and women) can mine 14 grams per hour. If the firm wishes to maximise profits, how many female and male workers should be hired, and what will the wage rates be for these two groups? How much will Golden Mining earn in profits per hour on its mine machinery? How will that result compare to one in which Golden Mining was constrained (say, by market forces) to pay all workers the same wage based on the value of their marginal products?