2ECONOMICS Module 1 Question 1 Consumption choice of people is related to the level of income. People choose to various types of good depending on income level. For this reason, income is considered as on important determinant of demand. depending on the relation between income and demand goods are classified into several categories. A normal good is one for which demand increases with rise in income (Fine, 2016). There is another type of good which is related to low level of income. This type of goods though is consumed when people earn a relatively low income, demand however decreases as income increase. Goods for which demand decreases with growth in income is known as inferior good. Given the scenario, when the individual earns $250 per week, cheaper food option could be noodle. Cheaper food in this case is an inferior good. Now if the same individual gets a better employment and his income increase, he can go for better food option. Increase in income increases affordability of the individual. As demand for better food option increases, demand for noodle will decline.
3ECONOMICS Figure 1: Demand curve for Noodles (as created by Author) In figure 1, DD shows the relevant demand curve noodles. When the individual gets better employment resulting in an increase in income, he no longer needs to go for cheaper food option. In order to get a better living standard, the individual then lowers the demand for noodles and go for better food option (Cowell, 2018). The contraction of noodles demand shifts the demand curve of noodles leftward. Question 2 The concept of Production Possibility Frontier is used to represent economic problem of choice and scarcity. PPF is the locus of all possible combination consisting maximum output of two goods that an economy is capable of producing given available resources. There are some basic assumptions behind construction of PPF which are discussed below
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4ECONOMICS There are only two goods that the economy can produce Factor of production for the economy is fixed Production technology is fixed The economy operates at full employment Constant prices for factor of production PPF covers the important aspect related to one of the basic problem of the economy – scarcity and choice (Baumol & Blinder, 2015). As the economy faces scarcity of resources it has to forgo some units of one good to increase unit production of other. This is represented by the downward slope of PPF. Another important concept is that known as opportunity cost. It is the cost of forgoing the next best alternative in favor of choosing some other alternative. Over the PPF, there operates law of increasing opportunity cost. That is as the economy moves to produce more of one good opportunity cost increases (Mochrie, 2015). Given that an economy faces increasing opportunity cost, PPF is concave to the origin.
5ECONOMICS Figure 2: Production Possibility Frontier In figure 2, the concave curve AE shows the production possibility frontier for the economy producing roadsters and convertibles. Various combination of output on the PPF is shown by the points A, B, C, D and E. Module 2 Question 1 Accounting profit Accounting profit is obtained by subtracting all the explicit costs from total revenue earned by the firm. Explicit costs capture all the monetary costs that a firm bear to continue production process (McKenzie & Lee, 2016) In the given scenario, explicit costs of the firm include cost of raw material, wages, rent, electricity and interest on machinery. Given the firm earns a total revenue of $150, 000, accounting profit can be computed as AccountingProfit=TotalRevenue−ExplicitCost
6ECONOMICS ¿$150,000−($20,000+$50,000+$10,000+$5000+$25,000) ¿$150,000−$110,000 ¿$40,000 Economic profit Economic profit of a firm represents the difference between total revenue and total explicit and total implicit cost that a firm face. Implicit costs include the opportunity cost that a business has to forgo to continue the production process. For the given firm, implicit costs include forgone pay, forgone interest and forgone rent. EconomicProfit=TotalRevenue−(Explicitcost+Implicitcost) ¿$150,000−{($20,000+$50,000+$10,000+$5000+$25,000)+($50,000+$5,000+$25,000)} ¿$150,000−($110,000+$80,000) ¿$150,000−$190,000 ¿−$40,000 From the above estimation it is observed that the firm is earning a positive accounting profit indicating incentive to the firm to continue operation. Since, accounting profit is positive the firm is financially stable. However, incorporation of implicit cost in profit estimation reveals a negative economic profit. The negative economic profit means the firm can be financially better off by using resources in some alternative opportunities (Cowen & Tabarrok, 2015). The higher opportunity cost that leads to a negative economic profit drives away investment.
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7ECONOMICS Investors in the firm then search for other productive opportunity. Considering economic profit, the firm cannot be considered as much sound financially. Question 2 The Road and Maritime Service in New South Wales insists that vehicles which are over 7 years old should be taken for inspection before renewal of registration for the next year. The objective is to ensure the vehicle is road worthy. Older vehicles are prone to accidents generating a negative externality. Accidents not only affect the car owner but also adversely affect other passengers and their family members (Kolmar, 2017). This imposes an external cost to the society. Consequently, social marginal cost exceeds the private marginal cost resulting in over production if left unregulated. Government intervention in the market is therefore needed ensure social efficiency. Figure 1: Negative externality from old vehicles (as created by Author)
8ECONOMICS The above figure explains negative externality associated with old vehicles. PMC curve shows the private marginal cost. The older vehicles are not worthy for roads. As probability of accident is larger with older cars the society faces an external cost because of use of this vehicles, the social marginal cost is above the private marginal cost. Free market equilibrium is at EM,corresponding price and output being PMand QMrespectively. The socially optimal equilibrium however is at ES.Quantity and price of older cars associated to the socially optimal equilibrium is QSand PSrespectively (Pindyck & Rubinfeld, 2015) Therefore, by insisting inspection for cars older 7 years helps to internalize the externality yielding socially efficient outcome.
9ECONOMICS References Baumol, W. J., & Blinder, A. S. (2015).Microeconomics: Principles and policy. Nelson Education. Cowell, F. (2018).Microeconomics: principles and analysis. Oxford University Press. Cowen,T.,&Tabarrok,A.(2015).Modernprinciplesofmicroeconomics.Macmillan International Higher Education. Fine, B. (2016). Microeconomics.University of Chicago Press Economics Books. Kolmar, M. (2017).Principles of Microeconomics. Springer International Publishing. McKenzie, R. B., & Lee, D. R. (2016).Microeconomics for MBAs: The economic way of thinking for managers. Cambridge University Press. Mochrie, R. (2015).Intermediate microeconomics. Macmillan International Higher Education. Pindyck, R. S., & Rubinfeld, D. L. (2015).Microeconomics. Boston: Pearson,.