discussion 4

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Feb 20, 2024

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Prior to the entry of private label producers, how would you classify demand (elastic, inelastic, unit elastic) for cereals produced by the Big Three? Support your answer by using details from the case and referencing the factors that influence the elasticity of demand. According to evidence found by Professor Cort, the three most successful cereal companies who ruled the market before 1994’s surge in private label cereal makers were General Mills, Kellogs, and Phillip Morris, aka ‘The Big Three’. Those companies were said to have a monopoly on the ‘ready to eat’ cereal market and also did not seem to directly compete with one another, and through history had also proved the cereal industry to be one of the strongest and most profitable (Cort, pg. 1 & 2). Dr. Jensen defines elasticity in her lecture series as a sensitivity to change, and inelasticity as a insensitivity to change (Jensen, ‘Elasticity’). We know that before other cereal companies were able to truly enter the market and make a difference in the industry, the ‘Big Three’ were able to increase their product pricing with very little in terms of change in quantity sold- thus proving that the demand for their product was inelastic. Dr. Jensen goes on to mention in her lecture, ‘Price of Elasticity’, that the demand curve is steep when inelastic, also confirming why the ‘Big Three’ would see a smaller change in quantity sold when changing product pricing (for example BOGO’s, just as much as raising prices- Cort, pg. 5) How would the entry of new private label producers impact the elasticity of demand for the Big Three’s products? The Big Three was impacted greatly by the influx of private label cereal producers during 1994, as low pricing became a primary motivator in buyers’ decisions- shifting the demand from inelastic to elastic (Cort, pg 9) Harris et al defines the substitution effect ‘as the part of an increase in amount consumed that is a result of a good being cheaper in relation to other goods because of reduction in price’ (pg. 221). This change greatly affected the success and supposed monopoly that the ‘Big Three’ had on the cereal market, once private labels gained up to 50% sales growth (Cort, pg 9) Identify both a variable cost and a fixed cost of cereal production According to Mr. Arnold Kling fixed and variable costs can be defined as follows: ‘ Fixed Costs are costs that the firm must incur even if it produces no output. –Variable Costs are costs that vary with the amount of output’ (Kling, 1999-2019). The fixed costs of cereal production are similar to those across many industries, such as the continued business costs such as overhead (for manufacturing, keeping up licenses/certifications, etc) (Harris et al, pg 241) Variable costs that change based on sales/output in the cereal industry would be R&D, the advertising and production costs of coupons, and labor costs (as labor should naturally increase with sales).
References: 1.) Corts, Prof. Kenneth (1997). The Ready-to-Eat Breakfast Cereal Industry in 1994 (A)’ . Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing 2.) Econo Lib Reads (1999-2019). ‘Elasticity of Demand’. The Library of Economics & Liberty. https://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/College/elasticityofdemand.html 3.) Harris, Warren, Reeve, Duchac, Gwartney, Stroup, Macpherson, Scott, Pride, Ferrell, Mcguigan, & Moyer (2015). ‘Bus 5601: Essentials of Business Development I’. Boston, MA. Cengage Learning. 4.) Jensen, Sherry, PHD. ‘Price Elasticity of Demand’, ‘Elasticity’, & ‘Demand’. Module 4 Video Lecture Series 5.) Kling, Arnold (1999-2019). ‘Costs of Production.’ The Library of Economics & Liberty. https://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/Details/costsofprodu ction.html
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