Chapter 10 ALA

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Apr 3, 2024

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ECO 211 Chapter 10 Active Learning Assignment 1. What do you think are the externalities that the following types of laws help solve? a. The law that makes unsolicited “spam” calls to anyone on the “Do Not Call” list illegal. A marketing call that you don’t want costs you time b. School rules that require students are up to date on their vaccines. Each student’s vaccination helps prevent an outbreak on campus that can affect other students and faculty 2. The many identical residents of Whoville love drinking Zlurp. Each resident has the following willingness to pay for the tasty refreshment First bottle $5 Second bottle 4 Third bottle 3 Fourth bottle 2 Fifth bottle 1 Further bottles 0 a. The cost of producing Zlurp is $1.5 and the competitive sellers sell it at this price (The supply curve is horizontal). How many bottles will each Whovillian consume? What is each person’s consumer surplus? At a price of $1.50, each Whovillian will consume 4 bottles of Zlurp. Each consumer’s total willingness to pay is $14 The total spent by each Whovillian on Zlurp is $6 Therefore, each consumer receives $8 in consumer surplus b. Producing Zlurp creates pollution. Each bottle has an external cost of $1. Taking this additional cost into account, what is total surplus per person in the allocation you described in part (a)? Total surplus would fall by $4 to $4. c. Cindy Lou Who, one of the residents of Whoville, decides on her own to reduce her consumption of Zlurp by one bottle. What happens to Cindy’s welfare (her consumer surplus – the cost of pollution she experiences)? How does Cindy’s decision affect total surplus in Whoville? If Cindy Lou only consumes 3 bottles of Zlurp, her consumer surplus is $4.50. Her willingness to pay for 3 bottles is 12. She pays $1.50 x 3 = $4.50 and the externality is $1 x 3 = $3. d. Mayor Grinch imposes a $1 tax on Zlurp. What is consumption per person now? Calculate consumer surplus the external cost, government revenue, and total surplus per person. 1
ECO 211 Chapter 10 Active Learning Assignment The $1 tax raises the price of a bottle of Zlurp to $2.50. (The entire tax will be borne by consumers because supply is perfectly elastic.) Each resident will purchase only 3 bottles at the higher price and each consumer’s total willingness to pay is now $12 (= $5 + $4 + $3). Each resident pays $7.50 (= $2.50 3). Therefore, each resident receives $4.50 ($12-$7.50) in consumer surplus. Because each bottle has an external cost of $1, the per-resident external cost is $3 ($1 per bottle x 3 bottles). The government collects $3 per resident in revenue. Total surplus with the tax is equal to $4.50 - $3.00 + $3.00 = $4.50. e. Based on your calculations, is the mayor’s policy appropriate? Why or why not? Yes, because total surplus is now higher than before the tax. 3. The graph below shows a market for house-painting services. Use it to answer the questions that follow. a. Painting the exterior of your house yields external benefits for your neighbors. Label the private benefit and social benefit curves and show the amount of the external benefit. See the graph. External Benefit = $2,200 - $1,600 = $600 b. What is the equilibrium price and quantity? Equilibrium price is $1,600 and the equilibrium quantity is 110,000 houses painted. c. What is the socially optimal quantity in this market? The socially optimal price is $1,800 and the socially optimal quantity is 140,000 houses painted. 2
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