ECON 2000 Chapter : Chapter 6 Econ Notes

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azuremammoth471

15 Mar 2019

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Total utility and marginal utility: utility = satisfaction, total utility-the total satisfaction one gets from consuming a product, marginal utility- the satisfaction you get from the product above and beyond what you have consumed up to that point. The principle of diminishing marginal utility- states that after some point, the marginal utility received from each additional unit of a good decreases with each additional unit consumed. As additional units are consumed, marginal utility decreases, but total utility continues to increase. When total unity is at a maximum, marginal utility is 0. Beyond this point total utility decreases, and marginal utility is negative. According to the basic principle of rational choice people spend their money on those goods that give them the most marginal utility per dollar. Basic principle of rational choice - states that people spend their money on those goods that give them the most marginal utility per dollar.

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. Suppose that the total utility from consuming one unit of good X is 54 utils, the total utility of two units of good X is 74 utils, and the total utility of three units of good X is 84 utils. The marginal utility of the third unit is

a.70.67 utils.

b.10 utils.

c.12.25 utils.

d.20 utils.

2. If income rises, the budget constraint

a. Moves outward away from the origin

b. Does not move

c. Moves inward toward the origin

d. Moves farther down the vertical axis

3. Economists assume that the goal of consumers is to maximize total utility.

true/false

4. The budget constraint cuts the horizontal axis at 12 units of good X and it cuts the vertical axis at 20 units of good Y. If the price of good X is $20 and the price of good Y is $12, then what does income equal?

a. $200

b. $240

c. $520

d. $280

e. not enough information to answer this question

5. Consumer equilibrium exists when an individual

a. can be made better off by buying more of a normal good and less of an inferior good.

b. is receiving the same total utility from each of the goods he or she purchases.

c. is receiving the same marginal utility from each of the goods he or she purchases.

d. has the same MU/P ratio for each of the goods he or she purchases.

e. none of the above

6. Suppose you are eating buffalo wings at a local happy hour. The total utils from doing so after the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh wings are 30, 50, 65, 72, respectively. In this situation we have __________ marginal utility, which is generally __________ in the analysis of consumer choice.

a. diminishing; not assumed

b. increasing; assumed

c. diminishing; assumed

d. increasing; not assumed

7. Which of the following best describes an interpersonal utility comparison?

a. Usually, Smith seems a lot happier than Jones.

b. Smith gets more utility from working on his computer than Jones gets from working on his computer.

c. Smith usually eats more in a day than Jones eats in a day.

d. ones likes computers produced by Dell Computer Corporation and Smith likes computers produced by Apple Computer Inc

e. Smith got less utility from eating the 30th cookie than eating the 29th cookie, and the same holds for Jones.

8. We would expect the total utility of water to be high but its marginal utility to be low. Why?

a. Because we need water to live and there is so much of it.

b. Because we need water to live and there is very little of it.

c. Because water is a fluid and we don't need fluids to live as much as we need food

d. Because water's price is low.

9.The marginal utility curve for units 6 through 8 of good Z lies below the horizontal axis. What does this imply must be true about the total utility curve for units 6 through 8 of good Z?

a. That portion of good Zâs total utility curve must also lie below the horizontal axis.

b. That portion of good Zâs total utility curve must be upward sloping.

c. That portion of good Zâs total utility curve must be horizontal.

d. That portion of good Zâs total utility curve must be downward sloping.

10. Research presented in the text shows that people are more concerned with their absolute income position in a group than their relative income position in the group.

true/false

According to neuroeconomics,

Select one:

a. logical decisions take place in the limbic system or amygdale, and emotional decisions take place in the prefrontal cortex.

b. both logical decisions and emotional decisions take place in the limbic system or amygdala.

c. both logical decisions and emotional decisions take place in the prefrontal cortex.

d. logical decisions take place in the prefrontal cortex, and emotional decisions take place in the limbic system or amygdala.

e. None of the above.

In comparing perfect competition and monopoly, which of the following is true?

Select one:

a. Monopolies automatically earn profits; perfectly competitive firms do not.

b. In perfect competition, profits will disappear in the long run as new firms enter the market; in a monopoly, profits may exist in the long run.

c. In the short run, both monopoly and perfect competition attempt to minimize total costs.

d. In the long run, both monopoly and perfect competition produce at the minimum of the average-total-cost curve.

e. Neither monopoly nor perfect competition can sustain positive economic profits in the long run

The quantity supplied is

Select one:

a. the amount sellers are willing and able to offer at a given price, during a particular time period, everything else held constant.

b. the amount sellers are willing and able to offer for sale at all possible prices.

c. a set of price and quantity-supplied combinations, everything else held constant.

d. a list of prices and the corresponding quantities supplied.

e. a downward-sloping line that relates expenditures to different levels of output.

Efficiency implies that goods and services are allocated

Select one:

a. to those with the ability to pay.

b. to those with the greatest need for the good or service.

c. equally throughout society.

d. in the most cost-effective manner.

e. by government in such a way that the marginal social benefit equals the marginal social cost for each good and service.

Assume a reserve requirement of 25 percent. If a bank has zero excess reserves and $100,000 in total cash reserves, then its deposits must equal

Select one:

a. $100,000.

b. $250,000.

c. $400,000.

d. $25,000.

e. $750,000.

When economists describe the process of consumer choice, they

Select one:

a. portray people as simple, methodical, and robot-like consumers who always behave in perfectly predictable ways.

b. are asserting the simple fact that consumers do have to decide which goods and services to purchase with their limited incomes and people do select the options that give them the greatest utility.

c. point out that consumers rarely consider utility in their purchase decisions.

d. are asserting that price is the only variable consumers consider in making their purchasing decisions.

e. admit that there is no credible economic theory to explain the phenomenon.

Unemployment will decrease if

Select one:

a. actual GDP increases faster than potential GDP.

b. actual GDP increases at the same rate as potential GDP.

c. the GDP gap widens.

d. actual GDP increases less than potential GDP.

e. actual GDP decreases and potential GDP remains the same.

ECON 2000 Chapter : Chapter 6 Econ Notes

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