Business Economics: Elasticity, Market Structures and Efficiency

This business economics assignment delves into various aspects of microeconomics, including resource allocation, market efficiency, and elasticity analysis. It examines the impact of externalities on resource allocation, analyzes the characteristics of public and private goods, and explores market structures such as perfect competition and monopolistic competition. The assignment also evaluates the concepts of income and cross-price elasticity of demand, providing numerical examples and interpretations. Furthermore, it compares the efficiency of different market structures, including perfect competition and monopoly, and discusses short-run and long-run equilibrium conditions. The assignment concludes by analyzing the impact of a sharp rise in oil prices on the demand for related goods and services, illustrating the principles of supply and demand in various markets. Desklib provides a platform for students to access this and many other solved assignments and past papers.

Running Head: BUSINESS ECONOMICS
Business Economics
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note
Course ID

1BUSINESS ECONOMICS
Table of Contents
Answer 1..........................................................................................................................................2
Answer a......................................................................................................................................2
Answer b......................................................................................................................................3
Answer c......................................................................................................................................3
Answer 2..........................................................................................................................................5
Answer a......................................................................................................................................5
Answer b......................................................................................................................................5
Answer c......................................................................................................................................5
Answer d......................................................................................................................................5
Answer 3..........................................................................................................................................6
Answer a......................................................................................................................................6
Answer b......................................................................................................................................6
Answer c......................................................................................................................................6
Answer d......................................................................................................................................7
Answer e......................................................................................................................................7
Answer 5..........................................................................................................................................7
Answer a......................................................................................................................................7
Answer b......................................................................................................................................9
Answer c....................................................................................................................................10
Answer d....................................................................................................................................12
Answer 9........................................................................................................................................13
Answer a....................................................................................................................................13
Answer b....................................................................................................................................16
Reference list.................................................................................................................................18

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Answer 1
Answer a
The presence of external cost or external benefit in the production or consumption
process prevents the efficient allocation of resources. External cost are the cost associated with
production process but not accounted by those directly engaged in such activity. This type of cost
is termed as negative externality (Baumol and Blinder 2015). Under this, the private marginal
cost is lesser than social marginal cost and therefore, the good is overproduced indicating
resources are over allocated. The figure below describes external cost and the resulted
inefficiency in resource allocation.
Figure 1: Inefficient allocation with external cost
External benefit on the other hand indicates additional benefit that society or third party
enjoys an additional benefit from production or consumption of a particular good or service.

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Here, social benefit is greater than private benefit. Private market thus produces lower than
socially efficient quantity.
Figure 2: Inefficient allocation with external benefit
Answer b
Goods or services with some specific characteristics cannot be supplied efficiency by
private market. Two prominent characteristics are non rivalry and non excludability. The feature
of non-rivalry indicates that consumption by one individual does not lower the benefit to another
individual. The characteristic of non-excludability indicates that consumption once the good is
supplied no one could be deceived from enjoying benefit of the good. With this feature efficient
functioning of free market fails (Cowen and Tabarrok 2015). The government then need to
intervene in the marketand provides such goods and services for public benefit.
Answer c

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i. Private good
Excludable: Weapons are provided only to the contractor.
Rivalry: Weapons are used exclusively and cannot be used by others.
ii. Public good
Non-excludable: Every people in the society enjoy benefits from the service
Non-rivalry: The service provided on one does not affect utility enjoyed by others.
iii. Private good
Excludable: use of the road is limited to only those who pay toll
Rivalry: Presence of too many cars in the road lead to the congestion problem and hence reduce
utility of the road
iv. Private good
Excludable: Course is offered only to those who pay fees for the course.
Rivalry: As number of students increases available seat for the course to others reduces.
v. Private good
Excludable: enjoyed only by private parties who purchase the lenses.
Rivalry: once the lenses purchased by one individual, the same cannot be enjoyed by others.

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Answer 2
Answer a
Income elasticity of compact disc is +6.0. If income reduces by 10 percent due to a
recession would cause the demand for compact disc to increase by (6 *10) = 60 percent.In case
of cabinet makers, income elasticity is given as +0.6. Therefore, a downfall in income by 10
percent cause a (0.6*10) = 6% downfall in demand. The same percentage reduction in income
thus affects the compact disc market more severely as compared to cabinet maker because of
higher responsiveness for a change in income.
Answer b
Competitiveness between pre-recorded music compact discs and MP3 players depend on
relation between the two goods. One way to determine this competitiveness is to estimate cross
price elasticity of demand between them. Positive estimate for cross price elasticity implies two
goods are substitute and hence, they are in price competition with each other to undercut market
share of the competitor (Mankiw 2015). The negative cross price elasticity projects
complementary relation and therefore no competition exists.
Answer c
YED = +0.8. The positive income elasticity estimate infers that a surge in income leads to
a corresponding upsurge in demand. This indicates the good is a normal.
YED = - 3.8. The negative income elasticity estimate infers that a growth in income leads
to a corresponding shrinkage in demand. This indicates the good is an inferior.
Answer d

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XED = +0.79. The given measure reflects a positive relation between demand and price
of the related goods. The two goods therefore are substitutes.
XED = -3.5. The given measure reflects a negative relation between demand and price of
the related goods. The two goods therefore are complementary.
Answer 3
Answer a
Firm A
Quantity 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Total Revenue ($) 0
1
0
2
0
3
0
4
0 50 60
Marginal Revenue ($)
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
Total Cost ($)
3
0
4
2
5
0
6
0
7
6
10
0 140
Marginal Cost ($)
1
2 8
1
0
1
6
2
4
4
0
Average Cost ($)
4
2
2
5
2
0
1
9 20 23.33333
Firm B
Quantity 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Total Cost ($)
10
0
13
4
15
4
17
7
21
6 266
36
6
Average Cost ($)
13
4 77 59 54
53.
2 61
Marginal Cost ($) 34 20
2
3
3
9
5
0
10
0
Price ($)
14
0
13
0
12
0
11
0
10
0 90 80
Marginal Revenue ($)
13
0
11
0
9
0
7
0
5
0 30
Total Revenue ($) 0
13
0
24
0
33
0
40
0 450
48
0

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Answer b
Firm A: Operating in short run
Firm B: Operating in short run
Answer c
Firm A: Operates in perfect competition
Firm B: Operates in imperfect competition
Answer d
Firm A: Produces 3 units of output in the short run
Firm B: Produces 5 units of output in the short run
Answer e
Firm A: Corresponding to the equilibrium level output, Firm A suffers a loss of $30
Firm B: Corresponding to short run equilibrium, Firm B enjoys a profit of $184.
Answer 5
Answer a
The monopolistically competitive market lack both allocative and productive efficiency.
The monopolistically competitive firms face a downward sloping demand curve. The firms here
charge a price above the marginal cost (Sloman and Jones 2017). This indicate non-occurrence

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of allocative efficiency. In the long run the firms stop production to the eft of minimum average
cost indicating productive n inefficiency.
Figure 3: Efficiency in monopolistically competitive market
In case of perfect competition, price is always at per marginal cost ensuring allocative
efficiency. The zero profit condition in the long run under perfect competition indicates that
firms’ operation take place at the minimum point of average cost which ensures productive
efficiency.

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Figure 4: Efficiency in perfectly competitive market
Answer b
Firms under perfect competition in the long run successfully achievedallocative
efficiency as followed by the condition P = LAC (min) = LMC. The point if operation for
monopolist on the other hand is given by the point E (Figure 5). At this point neither productive
nor allocative efficiency is achieved following the fact that price is set above the marginal cost
and the monopolist might stop production before reaching the efficient point (minimum of LAC)
(Friedman 2017).

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Figure 5: Efficiency comparison between competitive and monopolist firm
Answer c
Figure 6: Short run profit under perfect competition

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Figure 7: Short run loss under perfect competition
In the short run, firms engaged in perfect competition have a scope to enjoy economic
profit or economic loss by operating above or below the average cost. As the firms might not
operate in at minimum of average cost productive efficiency does not occur. Firms equilibrium
and resource allocation in the short run followed by two condition MR = MC and MC intersect
MR from below. Industry equilibrium on the other hand is obtained where demand and supply
matches with each other ensuring an efficient allocation of resources.
Figure 8: Industry equilibrium in the short run

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Answer d
Figure 9: Long run equilibrium under perfect competition
The above figure explains long run equilibrium under perfect competition. The
corresponding equilibrium point is shown as A. The long run equilibrium condition is P = LAC
(min) = LMC (Arrow 2015). At the point corresponding to long run equilibrium firms have zero
economic profit.

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Answer 9
Answer a
i)
Figure 9: Demand for Automobile
In response to a sharp rise in oil price demand for automobile would fall. This leads to
outward shift in automobile demand curve as shown in the figure above causing a corresponding
decline in price and quantity of automobile.
ii)

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Figure 10: Home insulation demand
In order to enhance efficiency of energy use in response to a higher price of oil demand
for home insulation increases.This moves the demand curve of home insulation outward (shown
in the above figure). The increased demand increase price and quantity sold in equilibrium.
iii)

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Figure 11: Demand for coal
The increase in price of oil increase coal demand as coal is a substitute oil. Here again,
demand curve shifts outward causing equilibrium to occur at a higher price and quantity.
iv)
Figure 12: Demand for tyres

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Tyre is a sub part of automobile. With a decline in demand for automobile tyres demand
decreases as well as displayed by an inward shift in tyre demand curve. Price and quantity
declines under new equilibrium.
v)
Figure 13: Demand for bicycle
With increase in oil price, people will tend to reduce the use of car and prefer bicycle to
save the fuel cost. This increase demand for bicycles. This is presented with a rightward shifts of
the bicycle demand curve indicating an increase in price and number of bicycles sold in the
market.
Answer b
Non-rivalry and non-excludability are the two distinctive features of public goods.
Because of non-excludability, people have a tendency to enjoy the good leading to a free rider

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problem. For these kind of goods people never reveal their real preferences. The demand curve
which under free market condition represents marginal social benefits fails to capture the true
preference or willingness of the goods (Maurice and Thomas 2015). Because of incomplete
information about preference and actual benefit, it is not possible for private market to supply
such goods in sufficient quantity.

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Reference list
Arrow, K., 2015. Microeconomics and operations research: their interactions and
differences. Information Systems Frontiers, 17(1), pp.3-9.
Baumol, W.J. and Blinder, A.S., 2015. Microeconomics: Principles and policy. Nelson
Education.
Cowen, T. and Tabarrok, A., 2015. Modern principles of microeconomics. Macmillan
International Higher Education.
Friedman, L.S., 2017. The microeconomics of public policy analysis. Princeton University Press.
Mankiw, N.G., 2015. Principles of Microeconomics, Cengage Learning. Stamford, CT, p.213.
Maurice, S.C. and Thomas, C., 2015. Managerial Economics. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Sloman, J. and Jones, E., 2017. Essential Economics for Business. Pearson.