Supply and Demand Week 2

The demand for an item can depend on various factors as I mentioned earlier. There is a terminology that we use to describe the willingness of a buyer to spend a certain dollar amount on the demand of his choice. The price of a good has a correlation with the quantity that is being demanded. For example, if a Starbucks cup of coffee costs $2, 100 buyers will spend money on coffee every morning, but if the price of the coffee goes up to $4, then only 45 buyers will be willing to purchase that cup of coffee every morning. Not only can the price for the cup of coffee can go up, but it can also go down, another example would be if the price drops to $1, the demand for coffee will now come from 160 buyers versus the 100 buyers that were willing to pay $2 for their coffee; this would be classified as

Sports teams are switching to a variable-pricing strategy for tickets so that they can get a higher profit on games with record attendance numbers. They feel the need to do so because the marginal costs, such as construction payment and players’ salaries, did not equal to the marginal revenue, since attendance was severely dropping. To pay for the marginal cost, the sports team needed to capitalize on things that they were sure of, like increasing attendances to games between major sporting rivals.

Elasticity of demand is the relationship between the demands for a product with respect to its price. Generally, when the demand for a product is high, the price of the product decreases. When demand decreases, prices tend to climb. Products that exhibit the characteristics of elasticity of demand are usually cars, appliances and other luxury items. Items such as clothing, medicine and food are considered to be necessities. Essential items usually possess inelasticity of demand. When this occurs prices do not change significantly.

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.

Recent medical advances have greatly enhanced the ability to successfully transplant organs and tissue. Forty-five years ago the first successful kidney transplant was performed in the United States, followed twenty years later by the first heart transplant. Statistics from the United Network for Organ Sharing (ONOS) indicate that in 1998 a total of 20,961 transplants were performed in the United States. Although the number of transplants has risen sharply in recent years, the demand for organs far outweighs the supply. To date, more than 65,000 people are on the national organ transplant waiting list and about 4,000 of them will die this year- about 11 every day- while waiting for a chance to extend their life through organ donation

Supply and demand is a fundamental element of economics; it is the main support system of a market economy. Demand can be interpreted by the quantity of a product or service a consumer is desired to acquire at a given time period. Quantity demanded is the amount of product consumers are willing to purchase at a given price; the relationship between price and quantity demanded is commonly known as the demand relationship. Supply however, accounts for how much a market produces for consumers. The quantity supplied refers to the actual amount of a certain good firms are willing to supply to consumers when receiving a certain price. Having limited resources we all have to

… It may seem strange that the market price is higher when demand is low than when demand is high. Use supply and demand analysis to describe why this situation exists.

The market price of a good is determined by both the supply and demand for it. In the world today supply and demand is perhaps one of the most fundamental principles that exists for economics and the backbone of a market economy. Supply is represented by how much the market can offer. The quantity supplied refers to the amount of a certain good that producers are willing to supply for a certain demand price. What determines this interconnection is how much of a good or service is supplied to the market or otherwise known as the supply relationship or supply schedule which is graphically represented by the supply curve. In demand the schedule is depicted graphically as the demand curve which represents the

When the demand for a good or service decreases due to an increase in the price it is considered elastic. However, if a price of a good or service increases and demand remains the same regardless of how high it increases it is inelastic. An elastic good in my life would be my hair products, makeup products, school books, juice, and clothes. I considered this and elastic good in my life because there are many substitutes available. For example, I can choose between a drugstore mascara or mascara from Sephora, also I can choose between buying the online version of a textbook or a used textbook from Chegg. An inelastic good in my life would be my concert ticket, phone service, and gas. My concert ticket to the Trap Circus is inelastic because

Demand for the product is determined by many factors, like pricing, quality, advertising and distribution.

When a good is a necessity it is something that is needed; unlike a simple desire to have something. These items have more of an inelastic demand even if the prices fluctuate. Wheat is a rich commodity in our country. The demand for wheat is inelastic. No matter how high the price rise the demand will still remain high in view of the fact that the price is determined by supply and demand. There are many producers of wheat which does not raise the profit level much for the farmers since their competition are all selling identical products. Other items, such as; basics in personal care, food, commodities, and medicine. The basic items that are needed to survive. Demands for these items may change over time but will not change very much. Their value can fluctuate if there are comparable substitutes available. Personal care items such as clothes and shoes are not in a single category where choices are concerned. There are a wide variety of manufactures and stores that sell them. So if the price raises the demand would be elastic because of substitutes. Food as a basic need is inelastic. However, if the prices were to rise on beef consumers could choose to substitute eating chicken, turkey, or pork instead. So even though the prices rose the demand would not increase because of acceptable substitutes. Medical service as a necessity is inelastic in demand. This is a service that is unquestionably needed for survival.

Elasticity of demand represented as “Ed” is defined as a “measure of the response of a consumer to a change in price on the quantity demanded of a good” (McConnell, 2012). Determinants for elasticity of demand would include the substitutability of a good, proportion of a consumer 's income spent on a good, the nature of the necessity of a good and the time a purchase is under consideration by the consumer. Furthermore, elasticity of demand is calculated with this formula:

The figure above indicates that demand tends to decline with price. In other terms, higher prices will be noticed when smaller numbers of units or space are on the market. As Jowsey (2011) said “an important trait of the demand curve is the sensitivity of quantity demanded to price changes”. As we have established the demand aspect, we need to now look at the quantity/supply side.

When the price of a good rises the quality demanded falls, if we think about how much does it falls. To figure out by how much it falls we must calculate the price elasticity of demand which is calculate by how responsive demand is to rise in price. Also, the price elasticity of supply measures the responsiveness of quantity supplied to a change in price.

The concept of supply and demand is quite straightforward in that as demand increases or supply decreases, the price of the service or product should increase. The opposite should also be true that as demand decreases or supply increases, then prices should go down. While this is quite true for most commodities in the market, this is not