Microeconomics Chapter 4 Essay

5. Fixed costs can be discretionary or committed. Using your judgment based on the discussion in the case, identify which costs are likely to be discretionary. Assuming that management is able to decrease discretionary fixed costs by 10%, what would be the impact on Bridgestone’s break-even point revenues?

Imagine that you have decided to open a small ice cream stand on campus called "Ice-Campusades." You are very excited because you love ice cream (delicious!) and this is a fun way for you to apply your business and economics skills! Here is the first month's scenario--you order the same number (and the same variety) of ice creams each day from the ice cream suppliers, and your ice creams are always marked at $1.50 each. However, you notice that there are days when ice creams remain unsold but other days when there are not enough ice creams for the number of customers.

Price elasticity of demand is a Theory of the relationship between a change in the quantity demanded of a

The elasticity of demand measures the buyer’s reaction to price as its changing. “Economists measure the degree to which demand is price elastic or inelastic with the coefficient E d, defined as E d = percentage change in quantity demanded of product X/ percentage change in price of product X” (McConnell, C. 2011). Therefore, Ed=∆Qd/∆Pd. When elasticity of demand is measured less than one, demand is considered to be inelastic. The coefficient in an inelastic range is less than one. When this takes place the percentage change in price is more than the percentage change in quantity. It can be said that when inelastic demand is present that quantity becomes less effected by price changing.

Question 35 Suppose a basket of goods and services has been selected to calculate the consumer price index (CPI) and 2002 has been chosen as the base year. In 2002, the basket’s cost was $76.00; in 2004, the basket’s cost was $79.50; and in 2006, the basket’s cost was $85.00. The value of

Understanding the law of demand pertaining to the elasticity of demand with other things equal measures consumers’ responsiveness or sensitivity to change in price of a product. The measuring of the degree of change or percentage of change will result in either elastic, inelastic, or unit demand.

If the product coast a large percentage of the average consumer’s income, people will pay more attention to sale prices because they may be afraid of a fact that if the price keeps rising, they can’t afford it because it is expensive and costs most of their income. It is common that we spend more than $200 on one pair of Nike shoes, which are quite expensive. However, the price of bread is low. Furthermore, one pair of Nike shoes costs more percentage of clients’ income than a piece of bread. If the price declines, people would like to buy more Nike shoes because they can’t afford it in normal time. However, people won’t buy too much bread than before because the bread may go rancid quickly. So people are more sensitive to the price of Nike shoes. As a consequence, all Nike shoes sold in Canada have more elasticity than all bread sold in Canada.

The new owner of a beauty shop is trying to decide whether to hire one, two, or three beauticians. She estimates that profits next year (in thousands of dollars) will vary with demand for her services and has estimated demand in three categories low, medium and high.

If Marlene Herbert were to discontinue place mats, he would miss $270,000 that will go toward Mendel paper company fixed cost. The company currently has a plant overhead that is estimated at $420,000 for the quarter. In addition to the fixed plant overhead, the plant incurs fixed selling and administrative expenses per quarter of $118,000. This draws the company to a total fixed cost of $538,000. If Marlene Herbert were to discontinue the second highest contributor to the fixed cost, he would need to increase the volume of computer paper and lower material cost to help pull the contribution margin of the lowest product up to help support the lost of a whole product line.

Mr. Salter asked me to analyze the capitated managed care agreement with the city and determine the full cost profit/loss and the differential cost profit/loss. Then based on this information, determine whether we should renew the contract for the next year at present rates or ask for a rate increase.

Elasticity of demand is measured as the percentage change in quantity demand divided by the percentage change in price .

There are three kinds of elasticity. There is elastic demand, where the elasticity is over 1. There is unitary elastic, where it is at 1.0. There is inelastic demand, where the elasticity is under 1 (Investopedia, 2013).

Elasticity is a measure of the responsiveness of demand to changes in the price of a good or service. In the case of Steam Scot, when the price rises from 4 to 5, demand falls from 60,000 to 40,000 units. The original equilibrium market price of 4 pounds resulted in demand of 60,000 units and this generated revenue of 240,000 pounds. When the prices increased to 5 pounds the resulting demand is 40,000 units, and this generates total revenue of 200,000 pounds. When market price changes from 4 pounds to 5 pounds 40,000 pounds of revenue are lost in this indicates an elastic price elasticity of demand.

Price elasticity of demand is an economic measure that is used to measure the degree of responsiveness of the quantity demanded of a good to change in its price, when all other influences on buyers remain the same.

Some of the most important knowledge gained for practical purposes concerned the concept and application of supply and demand. Anecdotal evidence of supply and demand can be seen all around us; including the way that gasoline prices increase and decrease as a result of the way oil prices, which resulted in a basic understanding of the underlying concept. Other areas where this can be seen include examples such as the stock market and even web sites such as eBay with the auction of goods. However, the ability to understand the way this operates not only helps to explain the observed outcomes, the ability to use this to help predict potential outcomes for different scenarios is highly useful. The concepts of elasticity and cross elasticity with different influences, such as disposable income and competing products are all