ECON101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 38: Marginal Utility

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purplemanatee917

8 Dec 2016

School

University of Waterloo

Department

Economics

Course

ECON101

Professor

Emmanuel Carvahlo

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ECON101 Full Course Notes

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Utility: a measure or expression of an individual consumer household"s preference. The unit of measure of for utility is utils. Alone the # of utils assigned to a unit of a commodity is irrelevant. What is relevant is how the number of utils assigned to a unit of a commodity compares to a number of utils of the same commodity and other commodities. Example: potato 1 (100 utils), potato 2 (50 utils, steak (1000 utils, prefer steak 20 times to the second potato and ten times to the first. Important concepts: total utility (tu, marginal utility (mu) Total utility: reflects the overall utility attributed to the various units of a commodity. Marginal utility: is the addition to the total utility attributed to the consumption of each additional unit of the commodity (added utility) According to diminishing marginal utility, during a specified period of time the added utility (mu) diminished continuously with the consumption of additional units of output.

Related Questions

1. Use the table below for the following question. Suppose you have a budget of $6 and that brownies and Twizzlers cost $1 each. What is the consumer optimum?

Number of Brownies	Total Utility of Brownies	Marginal Utility of Brownies	Number of Twizzlers	Total Utility of Twizzlers	Marginal Utility of Twizzlers
0	0	-	0	0	-
1	10	10	1	6	8
2	19	9	2	13	7
3	26	7	3	19	6
4	30	4	4	23	4
5	30	0	5	25	2
6	29	-1	6	25	0

6 brownies

3 brownies and 3 Twizzlers

4 brownies and 2 Twizzlers

any combination of 6 because they're both $1

2. Use the table below for the following question. What is the consumer equilibrium for a $6 budget if the price of brownies rises to $1.50 and the price of Twizzlers remains at $1.00?

Number of Brownies	Total Utility of Brownies	Marginal Utility of Brownies	Number of Twizzlers	Total Utility of Twizzlers	Marginal Utility of Twizzlers
0	0	-	0	0	-
1	10	10	1	6	8
2	19	9	2	13	7
3	26	7	3	19	6
4	30	4	4	23	4
5	30	0	5	25	2
6	29	-1	6	25	0

The consumer will buy all Twizzlers because they're cheaper.

4 brownies

3 Twizzlers and 2 brownies

3 brownies and 3 Twizzlers

3. At Nice Price for the Ice, an ice cream parlor, customers routinely buy a scoop of ice cream for $3. If consumers purchase one scoop of ice cream at $3, then why don't they keep buying more and more scoops for $3 until the store sells out?

People would not want more than one scoop of ice cream because then they would have less money to spend on other goods.

People do not want to consume all the scoops of ice cream because their total utility is higher the less they eat.

At some point, customers do not value an additional scoop at $3, so they will not pay $3 for a scoop after they reach that point.

4. Suppose you plan on eating 50 potato chips. As you start consuming potato chips, your marginal utility is very high, but it begins to fall slowly until you've eaten 10 chips. After you have eaten 10 chips, your marginal utility decreases even faster with each additional chip. The marginal utility continues to decline until you've eaten 49 chips. The fiftieth chip does not give you any additional utility. After 50 chips, your mouth gets so salty that it's unpleasant to eat anymore, so marginal utility is actually negative for those chips. How many chips should you eat in order to maximize your total utility?

5. As you start consuming potato chips, your marginal utility is very high, but it begins to fall slowly until you've eaten 10 chips. After you have eaten 10 chips, marginal utility decreases even faster with each additional chip. The marginal utility continues to decline until you've eaten 49 chips. The fiftieth chip does not give you any additional utility. After 50 chips, your mouth gets so salty that it's unpleasant to eat anymore, so marginal utility is actually negative for those chips. How many chips should you eat in order to maximize your marginal utility?

6. At current levels of consumption, Alice is spending her entire budget. If Alice gets 3 utils of satisfaction per dollar spent on ice cream and 2 utils per dollar spent on shampoo, then how should she adjust her consumption to get closer to the consumer optimum?

She is already at the consumer optimum, so no adjustment is necessary.

She should buy more ice cream and less shampoo.

She should buy more shampoo and less ice cream.

She should buy more of both goods.

7. Suppose you are at a restaurant and your favorite dish costs $20. You can get your next-favorite dish for $17. If your next-favorite dish gives you 100 utils, how many additional utils do you need from your favorite dish to spend the extra $3?

17.65

117.65

8. The diamond water paradox is the observation that water is essential to life and inexpensive, while diamonds are not essential and are highly-priced. Which of the other pairs of goods exhibit a pricing structure similar to water and diamonds?

economy & luxury cars

rice & truffles (very expensive mushrooms)

paper clips & gasoline

paper & textbooks

9. Rice is a cheap staple food eaten several times a day by many people all over the world. In Trufflelandia, residents also eat expensive mushrooms known as truffles once every year as a birthday celebration. Rice keeps the people alive and truffles are not necessary for sustaining their lives. Why is rice so cheap and truffles so expensive?

Truffles taste better, so they are worth more money.

Rice is easy to cook, so people buy a lot of it. If people are going to buy so much, then it has to be cheap.

Truffles are more nutritious, and healthy food is always more expensive than unhealthy food.

People eat so much rice that an additional serving of rice has little marginal value, but the marginal value of another serving of truffles is very high.

oliverat570

1. If the cross price elasticity of demand between two commodities is positive, then these commodities are

Select one:

a. are complements.

b. are inferior.

c. are superior.

d. are substitutes.

Answer...?

2. Along a given indifference curve, a consumer reduces the quantity of one good in favor of more units of the other. In this situation

Select one:

a. the marginal utility of the first rises and the marginal utility of the second good falls.

b. Total utility rises.

c. Both the marginal rate of substitution falls and the marginal utility of the first rises and the marginal utility of the second good falls are correct.

d. the marginal rate of substitution falls.

Answer...?

3. Along a given indifference curve, a consumer reduces the quantity of one good in favor of more units of the other. In this situation

Select one:

a. the marginal utility of the first rises and the marginal utility of the second good falls.

b. Total utility rises.

c. Both the marginal rate of substitution falls and the marginal utility of the first rises and the marginal utility of the second good falls are correct.

d. the marginal rate of substitution falls.

Answer...?

4. Moral hazard is a barrier to financing global growth because

Select one:

a. of the differences between financing using loans, portfolio investment and foreign direct investment.

b. there is the possibility that the funds are used for riskier behavior than the lender agreed to.

c. firms sometimes have trouble determining whether they need funds or not.

d. if investors have trouble identifying high-risk firms they may be unwilling to give money to creditworthy firms.

5. Moral hazard is a barrier to financing global growth because

Answer...?

6. Which of the following statements is FALSE?

Select one:

a. Price elasticity of supply can never equal 1.

b. Time is an important consideration in determining supply elasticity.

c. A horizontal supply curve is possible.

d. A perfectly inelastic supply curve is a vertical line.

Answer...?

7. Corporations are able to raise large amounts of financial capital because

Select one:

a. of limited liability and the treatment of a corporation as an individual entity.

b. of the tax breaks corporations are given relative to partnerships or proprietorships.

c. of the elimination of the problem of separation of ownership and control.

d. of their greater ability to monitor the performance of decision makers.

Answer...?

8. The largest quota subscriber of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is

Select one:

a. China.

b. Japan.

c. Germany.

d. the United States.

Answer...?

9. To derive the demand curve from the indifference map,

Select one:

a. vary the prices of both goods while holding income constant.

b. vary the price of one good while holding the price of the other good and income constant.

c. vary income while holding the prices constant.

d. vary the price of one good and income while holding the price of the other good constant.

Answer...?

10. As an individual consumes more of a particular commodity, the total level of utility derived from that consumption will

Select one:

a. increase at a constant rate.

b. increase at a decreasing rate.

c. remain constant.

d. increase at an increasing rate.

Answer...?

11. Which of the following is a TRUE statement about stock markets?

Select one:

a. It is always better to buy growth stocks than the older and more stable blue-chip stocks.

b. Economists can make above-average profits in the stock market because of their specialized knowledge of economics.

c. It is illegal for a friend of a corporate executive to make large profits in the stock market by using his inside information.

d. The stock market on average over time is random and totally unrelated to the performance of the economy.

Answer...?

12. Income elasticity of demand is defined as

Select one:

a. the percentage change in demand divided by the percentage change in income.

b. the percentage change in income divided by the percentage change in quantity demanded.

c. the change in quantity demanded divided by the change in market price.

d. the change in quantity demanded divided by the change in income.

Answer...?

13. The consumption possibilities curve is the

Select one:

a. budget constraint.

b. indifference curve.

c. supply curve.

d. demand curve.

Answer...?

14. According to the random walk theory,

Select one:

a. the probability that a stock's price will increase tomorrow is greater if it increased today.

b. the probability that a stock's price will increase tomorrow is greater if it decreased today.

c. the best forecast of tomorrow's price is today's price.

d. the best forecast of tomorrow's price is found by determining the trend for the last five trading days.

Answer...?

15. "Unit elasticity of demand can be found everywhere along a straight-line demand curve with a slope of -1." Do you agree or disagree? Explain.

Answer:

16. For which of the following would the absolute price elasticity of demand be greatest?

Select one:

a. Pepsi Cola

b. Tickets to the Super Bowl

c. Salt

d. Gasoline

Answer...?

16. The price of a hamburger is $1 and the price of a movie is $4 and the consumer has $10. A consumer has purchased 2 hamburgers and 2 movies, receiving 25 units of utility for the second hamburger and 100 units of utility for the second movie. The set of goods

Select one:

a. is not an optimum because the marginal utility per dollar spent is greater for hamburgers than for movies.

b. is not an optimum because the consumer has not spent all of his money.

c. is an optimum since the entire income is spent and total utility is minimized.

d. is an optimum since the entire income is spent and the marginal utility per dollar spent is the same for the last unit of each good.

Answer...?

17. Marginal utility

Select one:

a. is stable, but then as a person consumes more of a good or service, has a propensity to increase.

b. equals the total satisfaction from consumption of goods and services.

c. can be thought of as being the equivalent to total utility.

d. at first rises and then declines as a person consumes more of a good or service.

Answer...?

18. The nominal rate of interest is 4% and the anticipated rate of inflation is 5%. What is the real rate of interest?

Select one:

a. 1%

b. 4%

c. -1%

d. 9%

Answer...?

19. Using the above table, what is the total utility of consuming 3 bottles of soda?

Select one:

a. 115

b. 135

c. 120

d. 240

Answer...?

20. Dead capital is

Select one:

a. machinery that fails to operate properly.

b. a capital resource that depreciates rapidly.

Answer...?

21. What is the annual rate of growth of per capita real GDP if real GDP grows at a constant rate of 5 percent per year and the annual rate of population growth is 3 percent?

Select one:

a. 1.7 percent

b. 8 percent

c. 5 percent

d. 2 percent

c. machinery that requires constant maintenance.

d. any capital resource that lacks clear title of ownership.

Answer...?

ECON101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 38: Marginal Utility

ECON101 Full Course Notes

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