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ECON 2000 Chapter : Economics Chapter 6

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azuremammoth471
15 Mar 2019
School
LSU
Department
Economics
Course
ECON 2000
Professor
All

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Document Summary

Perfect knowledge the assumption that households possess a knowledge of the qualities and prices of everything available in the market and that firms have all the available information concerning wage rates, capital costs, and output prices. Perfect competition- an industry structure in which there are many firms each being small relative to the industry and producing virtually identical products and in which no firm is large enough to have any control over prices. Homogenous products- undifferentiated outputs- products that are identical to or indistinguishable fro one another. Use your savings or borrow money leave you with fewer choices on what you can buy in the future- but if you buy a laptop, fewer choices but the laptop itself is an investment. Constrained choice- the decisions that we make under constraints that exist in the marketplace. Consumption choices are constrained by wealth, income, and existing prices. Decisions about labor supply are constrained by the availability of jobs.

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Related Questions

1. Howard needs to buy a laptop computer to start online university courses. The price at the local computer store is $650. The identical computer is available at one online site for $605 and another site, for $622. All prices include the appropriate sales tax. The accompanying table indicates the typical shipping and handling charges for the computer ordered online.

 Shipping method

Delivery time

Charge

   Standard shipping

3 - 7 days

$13.99

  Second-day air

2 business days

$18.98

  Next day air

1 business day

$23.98

a. Define opportunity cost in economic terms.

b. In this situation, what are the opportunity costs of Howard choosing to buy online instead of at the local computer store? Note that if you buy the computer online, you must wait to get it.

c. Show all of the relevant choices for Howard.

d. What determines which of these choices Howard will choose?

 

 

2. During the improving economic conditions of 2015 and early 2016 much additional construction of homes and condos throughout much of the U.S. took place. This provided a significant increase in the income of workers in the construction trades. Many of the construction workers were immigrants and have family and relatives in other countries. Often these workers would send part of their income to their less fortunate relatives in their old country, especially in Mexico and some of the South American countries.

a. Which of the economic principles best describes this situation?

b. Using the principle you have selected, describe the chain of events that best explains how increased spending for U.S. home and condo construction is likely to affect the performance of the economies of these South American countries.

 

 

3. From June 2008 oil was at a high of $144.78 per barrel. During the period from April 2011 until July of 2014, the price of oil hovered between about $115.32 per barrel and about $105.22 a barrel. Then, starting in August 2014 oil began a precipitous fall in price from the $105.22 to $33.62 a barrel in January 2016. Although the U.S. has great amounts of oil that can be brought out of the ground by fracking, by the beginning of 2016 many of the workers in the U.S. oil exploration and drilling industry were out of work and tremendous amounts of oil exploration equipment was sitting in the equivalent of used car lots to be sold.

a. Which of the economic principles best describes this situation?

b. Using the principle you have selected, describe the chain of links that best explains how the falling international oil prices caused U. S. workers to be laid off and available U.S. oil to be left in the ground.

 

See the question and two answers, give brief your own opinion for each answer( are you agree on disagree with the answer, why?)

Q:This week, we are discussing market types. In this forum, please pick one of the market types that are presented in your textbook and provide your own definition (use your own words) and example. What do you think are the benefits vs. deficiencies of your chosen market type?

Answer 1)

Perfect Competition

This kind of market type stipulates the overall advantage that a market has. In this market, there are many sellers and buyers.These players do not control the price of commodities or services but the prices are controlled by the demand and supply of goods and services. As a result of this, no one can determine the market price of commodities because customers will switch to the next best alternative. All the market players in this sense are price takers and the customers that subscribe to these goods have a lot of experience about the goods offered. It means therefore that they have adequate information about the goods available, which means, therefore, they are aware of the prices that are being charged. All the firms that exist in this kind of market type have a relatively small market share because of the existence of so many of them. The market is also characterized by free entry and exit of firms. New firms can enter the market if they so wish and create competition to the existing firms. Due to this nature of many firms, most of them only earn enough to keep them on the market and nothing more for these firms (Makowski & Ostroy, 2001).

Answer 2)

The Oligopoly; best recognized by few sellers, identical (or similar) products, and its difficult entryinto the market. A good way to determine if a market has an oligopoly is if the change in one seller, causes its "competition" to change likewise. Automotive, cell phone industries, and aviation are some examples of markets that have an oligopoly. In the automotive industry, if one vehicle producer (lets say Chevrolet) changes the body style of its line up, other "completion" is soon to follow. Notice how cars these days are getting nicer and nicer for the base model? Research and Development is greatly valued in an industry that has an oligopoly. This is because if a seller lowers prices, they understand that its competitors will soon follow with ease. But, if they develop a better improvement over its last model in technology, it is much harder to follow than just a reduction in price.

The advantage of an oiligolpoly is that the leaders can set prices instead of take them. Which leads to those that are in charge having the ability to increase profit margins above what they would be in a truly free market.

The disadvantage is that for those looking to try to get into the market will have much difficulty because of the common huge capitol expenditures required to actually compete with the big boys.

Please answer the following questions. Show your work and then select A, B, C or D as your final answer. Thanks.

Barbershops in a large city would seem to be an example of competitive markets since there are many sellers operating relatively small shops, each seller takes the price of haircuts as given, and the products (haircuts) are very similar between different shops.

Question 1

How could you argue that the barbershop market is not competitive?

Select one:
a. Many barbershops may be locally-owned but are franchises of a single major corporation. Thus, the market is not competitive since it is ultimately only served by one supplier.
b. Each barbershop sells a very differentiated product to its clients since it is rare that two clients receive the exact same haircut (perfect substitute).
c. Since barbershops do not sell any physical or tangible items to customers, the prices charged are not constrained by market forces and can be unusually high or low.
d. Most barbershops only serve clients who live relatively close by. A barbershop on one side of town usually does not attract clients who live or work many miles away on the other side of town. Thus, barber shops tend to only compete with the relatively few other barbershops that are nearby.

Question 2

Is it possible that each barbershop could face a demand curve that is not perfectly elastic?

Select one:
a. No; each barbershop in a large city is indistinguishable from the others (i.e., they are perfect substitutes), and so the demand for any individual barbershop is perfectly elastic.
b. No; since clients are not willing to accept price changes for their haircuts from one month to the next (e.g., $15 haircut this month, $20 haircut next month, etc.), the price will remain constant in the long run and thus demand is perfectly elastic.
c. Yes; if they have some degree of market power (e.g., they can charge slightly higher prices since clients will not stop at every barbershop in the city to find the cheapest price), then they will not face perfectly elastic demand.
d. Yes; demand is only perfectly elastic if the demand curve is upward-sloping, and barbershop demand is downward-sloping.

Question 3

How profitable do you expect barbershops to be in the long run?

Select one:
a. Since they are usually very small, most barbershops will be unable to compete with larger firms with higher fixed and variable costs. Barbershops should expect losses in the long run.
b. Barbershops have the ability to set their own price above the market equilibrium price for a considerable length of time given their small size and the sheer number of other barbershops. Most individual barbershops will enjoy positive economic profit in the long run.
c. Improvements in hair-cutting technology, and the difficulty of new entrepreneurs entering this market, will guarantee above-normal profits for barbershops for the next few decades.
d. Even with a small amount of market power due to attracting only local clients, it is still relatively easy to enter and exit the barbershop industry. Long-run profits will likely be driven down close to zero.