ECON 2013 – Assignment #3 _ 2009
ECON 2013 – Assignment #2 _ 2009
1. Abdul was an actor and spends all of his disposable income on attending either plays or movies. He likes plays exactly 3 times as much as he likes movies.
a. Draw Abdul’s indifference map.
The utility function will be : U = M +3P the curves will be straight lines
Movies (M)
1
3
Plays (P)
. Suppose he has a disposable income of $120/month. If tickets cost $12 for plays and $3 for movies, show his budget line and indicate the highest attainable indifference curve. How many movies and how many plays will he see in a month?
MRS = 1/3
Price ratio = 12/3 = 4
So MRS
c. Suppose play tickets remain at $12, but movie ticket prices rise to $5. Now what will be Abdul’s monthly demand for movies and plays?
Now price ratio is 12/5 which is still > MRS. He continues to consume only movies
M= 120/5 = 28 now and 0 Plays.
2. Militsa is indifferent between consuming four slices of pizza and one beer and three slices of pizza and two beers. She prefers a bundle containing three beers and one pizza slice to either of the two bundles mentioned earlier. Do Militsa’s preferences show diminishing marginal rates of substitution? Explain.
Utility = U (4P, 1B) = U(3P, 2B) = U1
So to get 1 more B Miltsa gave up 1P (4P to 3P)
U(1P, 3B) > U (4P, 1B)
U(1P, 3B) > U(3P, 2B)
It is possible that to stay on U1 she consumes 3B and any amount less than 1P (say 0.5P)
then U (.5P, 3B) =U1
this means that to go from 2B to 3B she gave up 3P-.5P = 2.5P. earlier she gave up 1P to get 1 more B (from 1B to 2B). This means that as B increases she is willing to give up more of P- her MRS is NOT diminishing. It is rising. ...