Why economists use elasticity to measure responsiveness to change in prices or incomes?
Concept Introduction:
Elasticity:
The elasticity is defined as the measure of one’s variables responsiveness to a change in another variable. In economics the elasticity is used for measuring the responsiveness of supply and demands to its change in price, this is called the price elasticity, there is also income elasticity and cross elasticity.
Explanation of Solution
The elasticity is the responsiveness of supply and demand to one of its determinants, if the determinant is price that is called price elasticity, if the determinant is income it is called income elasticity and if the determinant is other products the elasticity is called the cross elasticity of demand. The elasticity allows the economists to analyses the changes in terms quantitatively rather than qualitatively. While using the elasticity we are using the ratio of percentage change in the variables there fore it is a considered as a pure number. The economists use elasticity rather than slope to measure the responsiveness to change in prices or incomes because it gives a pure number to them.
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