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A consumer has quasilinear utility ( , 1 , 2 , . . . , ( , 1 , 2 , . . . ,
A consumer has quasilinear utility (,1,2,...,
)=+(1,2,...,
), where:
is the quantity of good ,
is money (left over after paying for goods 1,...,), and
is a differentiable strictly concave function (this just means that if the optimum is
interior, you can find it by taking first−order conditions).
She has income and faces prices 1,2,...,, all measured in the same units as .
a) Write the consumers budget constraint.
b) Find the first−order conditions that determine how much of each good is consumed,
assuming that the solution is interior.
[Hint: Use the substitution method. If youre having trouble doing the problem for an
arbitrary function , do the case where =1 or 2 and (1,2,...,
)=1 or
1+2 and see if you can generalize. Without a specific functional form, you can
simply write the partial derivative of (1,2,...,
) with respect to as
(1,...,)
.]
c) What condition on is needed for an interior solution? [Hint: cannot be negative at the
consumers optimum.] Express your answer in terms of ,1,2,..., and the quantities
from the optimum determined in part a, which you may denote 1
,2
,...,
.
For the remainder of this question, assume that the solution is always interior, so that your
answer from part a is valid.
d) Find
.[Hint: Do your first−order conditions depend on ?] Are goods 1,..., normal,
inferior, or neither?
Suppose the price of good 1 increases from 1 t
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