preview

Economics: Price Elasticities

Decent Essays

1a)

Price elasticity of demand (PED) measures the degree of responsiveness of the quantity demanded of a good to a given change in price of the good itself, ceteris paribus. It is found by taking the percentage change in quantity demanded of good X divided by the percentage change in the price of good X.

The numerical value of the price elasticity of demand is always negative due to the inverse relationship between quantity demanded and price as stated in the law of demand. When we interpret the value of the price elasticity of demand, we just quote the absolute value. The absolute value of PED range from zero to infinity.

When PED is greater than one, the demand for the good is said to be price elastic. It means that a …show more content…

If the YED is between zero and one, it means that the good is a basic necessity and is income inelastic which implies that a proportionate change in income causes a less than proportionate change in the demand for the good. And example will be staple food such as rice.

A negative YED implies that increases in income will lead a decrease in the demand for these goods called inferior goods. Thus inferior goods have negative YED and an example of an inferior good is walkmans.

There are many factors that affect the YED of a product. Firstly, the degree of necessity of the good. The higher the degree of necessity, the lower the magnitude of YED such as basic goods like staple food. A change in level of income will not cause a significant change in the demand of staple food. Whereas luxury goods such as posh restaurant meals will have a higher YED. However, in different places, people will view the necessity of the good differently. For example a necessity product in a developed country maybe a luxury product in developing countries due to different stages of economic development.

Secondly, the rate of satisfaction for the good as the consumption increases. When a consumer quickly become satisfied from consuming the product, the less their demand will expand as income increases for example food such as beef. Thus the demand for the good will be

Get Access