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Micro Economic Theory & Applications-I Introduction & Demand Analysis
Micro Economic Theory & Applications-I Introduction & Demand Analysis
Characteristics Of Definition
• A Social Science
This Definition makes economics a social science. It is a
subject that is concerned with the people living in
society. According to Marshall, as the behavior of human
beings is not same all the time therefore principles of
economics cannot be formulated like the laws of
sciences. Further laws of economics are not as exact as
the laws of natural sciences. For this reason it is a social
science.
• Study Of Man
Economics is related to man; therefore it is living subject.
It discusses economic problems and behavior of man.
According to Marshall it studies the behavior of man In
ordinary business of life.
Wednesday, December Dr Arun Bhadauria, Assistant Prof 4
8, 2021 essor & Prog Coordinator, Agribu
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AMITY BUSINESS SCHOOL (ABS)
Cont’nd…
• Wealth As A Means Of Material Well Being
According to Marshall, wealth is not the ultimate
objective of human activities and therefore we do not
study wealth, for the sake of wealth. Therefore according
to this definition we study wealth as a source of
attainment of material welfare.
• Economics And Welfare
This definition makes economics a welfare oriented
subject. We are concerned only with those economic
activities which do not promote material welfare of
human beings are out of the scope of economics.
LIONEL ROBBINS
• Lionel Robbins was a professor at University of London.
He wrote his book ‘Essay on Nature and Significance of
Economic Science’ in 1932 (75 years ago).
• According to him ‘economics is science, which
studies human behavior as a relationship between
ends and scarce means, which have alternative,
uses.
• Ends means wants of human beings, which are unlimited
whereas resources to satisfy them are limited.
• Scarce resources have alternative uses; therefore,
choice making becomes essential. A person fulfills that
desire; first, which is more important to him.
ECONOMICS AS A SCIENCE
• Economics, like other social sciences, make little use of
laboratory methods in which changes in variables can be
explained in controlled conditions.
• Economists usually have to examine what has already
happened in the past in the real world in order to test
their theories.
• If a simple model can explain observed behavior
repeatedly, it has some value, for example, law of
demand explains cause and effect relationship between
price and demand for a good. With the fall in price
(cause), demand of a good increases (effect) and with
rise in price of good, its demand decreases. All economic
laws have similar cause and effect relationships.
CHARACTERISTICS OF PRICE
MECHANISM
ECONOMIC WANTS
• Economic wants means desire for goods and services.
• The attempt to satisfy wants forms the basis of all
economic activity.
• Wants are expressed in market not by desire but by
willingness and ability to actually purchase goods and
services.
• A desire of a person cannot become want unless and
until he has money to purchase and is also willing to give
away money for that good.
• Economic wants are fulfilled by consumptions of goods
and services.
ECONOMIC WANTS
• WANTS ARE UNLIMITED
– Economic wants are unlimited, after fulfilling one want another
want comes up, hence there is no end to them.
• WANTS ARE REPEATED
– Wants once fulfilled, never ends, they are repeated again and
again. Wants to fulfill hunger, thirst and clothing keeps on
repeating.
• WANTS COMPETE WITH EACH OTHER
– Some wants are felt urgently than others. Some of them cannot be
postponed while others can be postponed. An individual will fulfill
his that want first, which is more pressing and important to him.
• WANTS CAN BE FULFILLED BY ALTERNATIVES
– Some wants can be fulfilled with the use of alternative goods, for
example eating rice; bread or fruits can satisfy our want of hunger.
GOODS
• Public goods cannot be produced or sold very easily in small units.
• More and more people at no additional cost can use public goods.
• Once money is spent on national defense, the defense protection
received by one person does not reduce the amount of protection of
another person.
• Additional users of public goods do not deprive other peoples right of
any of the services or the goods.
• If one person turns on his television set, his neighbors do not get
weaker reception of TV program. No one can be excluded from benefits
of a public good, even though a person has not paid for it.
• A very poor person does not pay any tax, yet he cannot be denied
benefits of Govt. hospitals and police protection.
• Public goods cost of extending the service to an additional person is
zero and it is impossible to exclude individuals from enjoying them.
• Public goods are ones whose benefits are indivisibly spread among the
entire community, whether the individuals desire to purchase the public
good or not.
Wednesday, December Dr Arun Bhadauria, Assistant Prof 46
8, 2021 essor & Prog Coordinator, Agribu
siness
AMITY BUSINESS SCHOOL (ABS)
QUASI RENT
• Alfred Marshall gave this concept. According to him some factors of
production may be in relatively price-inelastic supply in short-run but
more elastic supply in long-run and thus may earn temporary
economic rents until supply is able to adjust fully to meet the
demand.
• Economic rent accruing to such factors of production is called Quasi
rent and it tends to disappear in long-run as supply catches up with
demand. For example, in the case of particular types of work where
a lengthy training period is required, a sudden increase in demand
for such work would enable persons already possessing appropriate
skills to secure large quasi rents through high wage rates.
• Quasi Rent arises on land whose supply is fixed, it also arises on
building, machinery and highly technical labor and whose supply
become short for the time being but in long run supply of which can
be increased.
• Quasi rent is a temporary surplus and with the increase in supply of
these factors, rent becomes normal.
• Levels of income
• Population
• End market indicators
• Availability and price of substitute goods
• Tastes and preferences
Elasticity of Demand
• The price elasticity of demand measures the responsiveness of
the quantity demanded to changes in the price of the product,
holding constant the values of all other variables in the demand
function.
• With elastic demand, a price increase will lower total revenue and
a decrease in price will raise total revenue.
• Unitary elasticity describes a situation in which the effect of a price
change is exactly offset by the effect of a change in quantity
demanded. Total revenue, the product of price times quantity,
remains constant.
• With inelastic demand, a price increase produces a less than
proportionate decline in quantity demanded, so total revenues rises.
Conversely a price decrease produces less than a proportionate
increase in quantity demanded, so total revenue falls.
demand
• The elasticity of demand changes
along the length of a demand curve.
• As we move along the demand curve
from left to right, the percentage
change in quantity demanded
(calculated as change in quantity
divided by original quantity) falls and
the percentage change in price
(calculated as the percentage change
in price divided by original price) rises.
• Therefore elasticity decreases as we
move from left to right.
The figure above shows how elasticity
changes along a straight-line demand
curve.
5 50 250
7 40 280 Inelastic(E<1)
8 35 280 Unitary(E=1)
9 30 270 Elastic(E>1)
10 25 250 Elastic(E>1)
• How much demand for one good is effected by changes in the price
of another, associated good is measured by the the first good's
cross elasticity of demand
• The cross elasticity of of demand for substitutes is a positive
number. After all, if the price of good B rises, then the demand for
good A will also rise.
• The cross elasticity of demand for complements is negative. If the
price of good B rises, then the quantity of good A demanded will
fall.
Elasticity of Demand
• The income elasticity of demand measures the responsiveness of
demand to changes in income, holding constant the effect of all
other variables.
• For normal goods, individual and aggregate demand is positively
related to income. Income and the quantity purchased typically
move in the same direction; that is, income and sales are directly
rather than inversely related. Therefore, əQ/əI and hence e1 are
positive.
• This does not hold for inferior goods. Individual consumer demand
for such products as beans and potatoes, for example, tends to fall
as incomes rise because consumers replace them with more
desirable alternatives.
• Demand for such products is countercyclical, actually rising during
recessions and falling during economic booms.
Theory
• The Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility
• Based on this theory, utility is the satisfaction of consumer from
consumption which can be measurable ( i.e. be quantified ) and
discernible ( i.e. comparable ).
• From the observation of real life situation, the theory suggests that ,
• the total utility of a consumer will increase through consumption, but
for successive units of the
• goods consumed, the additional or extra units of utility got - the
marginal utility will gradually (?)
• diminish.
• The economists at that time ( 1870s ) believed it so the law is in fact
an assertion rather than a scientific
• theory. This is our familiar law of diminishing marginal utility.
• When anyone uses the term “ marginal utility “ it already implies that
utility is assumed to be measurable. Otherwise the concept of
marginality cannot be applied.
Wednesday, December Dr Arun Bhadauria, Assistant Prof 80
8, 2021 essor & Prog Coordinator, Agribu
siness
The Law of Equil-Marginal Utility(ABS)
AMITY BUSINESS SCHOOL
Per Dollar
• It suggests that when a consumer buys more of
a good, its marginal utility on the good
decreases, but at
• the same time, other goods will be consumed
less if money income is fixed.
• The rationale is that as long as the marginal
utility of any two or more goods are different, a
consumer will try to consume the good with a
higher marginal utility.
• Example
• Given : Income = $14 ; Price of A = $1 ; Price of B = $2.
• Result : M U of A / Price of A = M U of B / Price of B = 7 units of
utility / $ 1
0 0 / 0 / 0 7 0 + 110 = 110
1 10 10 24 24 2 6 19 + 104 = 123
2 19 9 45 21 4 5 34 + 94 = 128
3 27 8 64 19 6 4 45 + 80 = 125
4 34 7 80 16 8 3 52 + 64 = 116
5 40 6 94 14
6 45 5 104 10
7 49 4 110 6
8 52 3 114 4
Utility Maximization
• From the example above, the consumer will consume a
different quantity of good A and B.
• The MU ( obtained by the last dollar spent ) derived from
the good A & B will equal so that a state of
• equilibrium could be reached.
• MUX / PX = MUY / PY = MUZ / PZ .....
( A state of consumer optimum )
• If the equation is re-written into another form :
• MUX / MUY = P X / PY ..... ( The ratio of
MU of any two goods = Their relative price )
• Alfred Marshall accepts the cardinal approach. He further
believes that the MU of money is constant. This is a highly
controversial assertion but it makes the analysis simpler.
marginal utility.
• The equi-marginal principle suggests that as $3.00 3
price gets lower, consumers find that they must
use more of an item to keep equality among $2.00 4
marginal-utility-to-price ratios.
• Alternatively, as people use more of an item, its $1.00 5
marginal utility drops, and so must its price if
they are to stay in equilibrium. $0.50 6
Illustrated
• The producers' and consumers'
surpluses are illustrated with supply and
demand curves in the figure below. The
total value to consumers of quantity Q
is represented by areas A+B+C.
Because the consumers must pay B+C,
only the area A is surplus for them.
Producers get revenue of B+C. B is
their surplus because only payments of
C are needed to attract the resources
necessary to produce quantity Q.