Answered step by step
Verified Expert Solution
Link Copied!

Question

...
1 Approved Answer

enter correct answers... i. Suppose the hospitals objective function is to maximize the util- ity of its micro fibralgia patients. Argue that the only possible

image text in transcribedimage text in transcribedimage text in transcribedimage text in transcribedimage text in transcribedimage text in transcribedimage text in transcribed

enter correct answers...

image text in transcribedimage text in transcribedimage text in transcribedimage text in transcribedimage text in transcribedimage text in transcribedimage text in transcribed
i. Suppose the hospitals objective function is to maximize the util- ity of its micro fibralgia patients. Argue that the only possible optimal wait time they could choose to impose is w=0,4. (5 points) Hi. Calculate the Expected Utility of the micro fibralgia patients and drug addicts at each of the wait times as a function of N and K. (5 points) Hi. Suppose that K = 10, N=60 - should the hospital screen its patients? Will there be a shortage of medication? (5 points) 4. "Consider a world in which state contingent contracts can be written. There are two people (Chris and Tatiana) and two goods - umbrellas and swim suits. When it is raining, both people like having as many um- brellas as possible. If it is sunny, both people like having as many swim suits as possible. Suppose each person has an identical utility function U(u, spraining) = u, U(u, ssunny) = s where u and s are the number of umbrellas and swimming suits the agent possesses in the given state (they get more utility from having more umbrellas). Assume that at 1=0 each agent is endowed with 1 umbrella and 1 swim- suit for the next period. The two agents disagree on the probability of whether it will rain in the future. Tatiana is an optimist and believes it is going to be sunny with probability .75 and rainy with probability .25. Chris is a pessamist and believes it is going to be sunny with probability 5 and rain with probability .5. Both people are vNM utility maximizers, thus: UTatiana (14, 8) = .750(u, s[sunny) + .250 (u, straining), Tatiana'sendowment : u = 1,s = 1 Uchris (1, s) = .5U(u, s(sunny) + .50(u, straining), Chris'sendowment : u = 1.s = 1 (a) Draw the edgeworth box for this problem. What do indifference curves for the two individuals look like? (b) Before doing any math - why is it that we expect our final allocation to be on the boundary? (c) Why in this problem do we not have a unique price on which all markets clear? (d) Suppose that I am a social planner trying to efficiently allocate um- brellas and bathing suits to my housemates. I solve: max AUTatiana (Ut: ;)) + (1- A)(UChris(Uc, Se)) at le + 1 = 2, se + 1 = 2 Show that all the pareto optimal outcomes are on the boundary of the edgeworth box. 5. Suppose that we are in an economy with two individuals i = 1,2 each with identical utility function u'(11, 12) = (2172) . (a) Suppose that agent 1 is endowed with If = 1, 17 = 0 and agent 2 is endowed with If = 0, ry = 2. At what price ratio P will prices clear in this market? Determine the allocation in this situation. (b) Prove that in this economy, the price found in part (a) will clear the market regardless of the initial allocation as long as the total endowment stays the same. What will the contract curve look like? (c) Show that the contract curve and the price function are orthoginal in this problem.2. "(From McAfee 1996) In May 1990, IBM announced the introduction of the LaserPrinter E, a lower cost alternative to its popular LaserPrinter. The LaserPrinter E was identical to the original Laser Printer except that it printed at 5 ppm instead of 10 ppm. According to Jones(1990), the engine and parts of the printer were virtually identical to the faster printer except that the controller for the slower printer had firmwear that inserted wait states to slow the print speed of the printer. This problem is designed to see how such damaging of a product may make everyone better off. (a) Assume first that you have a single high quality product that you are selling. The product has constant marginal cost to produce of $1. There are two types of consumers who are willing to buy a single unit of your good. 25% of the population is type 1 and are willing to buy your product if the cost of producing it is less than or equal to $11. 75% of the population is type 2 and are willing to buy your product 2 if it is priced at $3.00. Suppose that you must sell your product at a constant price (you can not screen your consumers) - show that you will only sell to the high types. (b) Now assume that you can produce a broken version of your product. Let s be a measure of how broken your product is. The high types get utility Up(x,,s) for consuming one unit of type s good. Thus Un(1, 0) is the value to the high type of buying one unit of the original quality good and Up (1, s) would be the utility of the high type for buying a good with quality s. Similarly, the low type get Uz(1,0) for the original good and Up (1, s) for consuming a low good of value s. Assume that a 0 (it is costly to produce an inferior good). i. Again assume that there is no screening other than offering a low quality good. Set up the monopolists problem. ii. Suppose that Un (1, a) = 11 -26, UL(1, a) =3-.250, and c(s) = 1. Find the optimal quality of the lower good and the amount charged for the two goods. ili. Suppose by law the monopolist can only reduce quality down to s = 3. Show that in this case, everyone is at least as well off due to the creation of the damaged good. 3. Suppose that a hospital carries K doses of an opium based medicine used to help patients suffering from micro fibralgia. N 2 K patients come seeking the drug at the same time. 6 of these actually suffer from the disease while N-6 of them are drug addicts looking for a fix. (a) Suppose that the hospital does not care about the utility of the drug addicts. The utility of a micro fiberalgia agent receiving the drug is 10. The utility of a micro fibralgia agent who does not receive the drug is zero. Calculate the total expected utility the hospital can provide to its micro fibralgia patients if it has no way to screen between drug addicts and true patients. (b) Suppose that the Hospital can force agents to waste time before being treated. The utility of a micro fibralgia user who must wait and receives the medication with probability p is: UMicro(w, p) = 10p - 2w Drug addicts have a utility function of UDA(w,P) =4-w The addicts are not rational - as long as they stay in the hospital they believe that the probability of receiving treatment is 1. Both agents outside option is zero, that is UMiers(0,0) = UpA (0,0) =0.1. Consider the monopolist from the last problem set who is serving two types of consumers with demand functions. Let c(y) = 0: Di(p.k) = 2-p ks (-p) Otherwise Du(p.k) = 4-p ks(-' Otherwise Recall from the last problem set that an agents utility from consuming good 1 is given by: UL(P.k) = (2-P) _ UN(P.k) = -P_ _ (a) Suppose that the low market all have student IDs that allow them to be differentiated from the high types. For an agent to participate it must be that: UL(p. k) 2 0 Un(p.k) 2 0 These are known collectively as individual rationality (/ R) constraints or participation constraints (PC). Draw graphically the following cases. You do not have to do the math for this problem: i. Suppose legislation requires that & = 0 and that pz = pu. Draw the optimal price and shade the producer surplus. ii. Suppose legislation requires that & = 0 but pr and py can be different. Draw the optimal prices and shade the producer sur- pluses ifi. Suppose legislation requires pr = pp and kt = ky. Draw the optimal price and shade the producer surpluses. Will the agent serve both markets? iv. Suppose both PL. PH. kL,and ky-can all be different Draw the optimal price and shade the producer surpluses. Will the agent serve both markets? (b) Now suppose that the agent can not tell one type of consumer from the other. In this case we require that each agent type gets more utility from choosing the bundle meant for them than the one meant for the other type of agent: UL(PL.KL) 2 UL(PH. KM) Un(PH, KH) 2 Un(PL, KL) These conditions are called incentive compatability constraints. They bascially say that a high type who pretends to be a low type must get less utility than he would acting as a high type. In standard screening problems it is typically the IIt constraint of the low type and the IC constraint of the high type that binds. That is: UL(p. k) 2 0 Un(PH, KH) 2 Un(PL.KL) To think about these concepts draw graphically the following cases. You do not have to do math for this problem. If you haven't already done it, assume that the low market is large enough that it isn't shut out.: i Suppose legislation requires pr = p# and ky = ky. Draw the optimal price and shade the producer surpluses. Will the agent serve both markets? Is this different from the problem with full signals above? ii. Suppose both PL, Pu. kz,and ky-can all be different Draw the optimal price and shade the producer surpluses. iii. Suppose instead of only being able to restrict p and & the mo- nopolist can also restrict quantity qr and qu. Draw the optimal price and shade the producer surpluses.C. Heckscher-Ohlin Model. Suppose all the assumptions behind the model apply: 2 countries (Home and Foreign), 2 goods (food and cloth), 2 factors of production (labor and land), and each country has the same tastes, the same technology, and increasing costs of production. Also there are competitive markets in each country and industry and the supply of factors are fixed for each country. Moreover, assume the following: (1.) The land-labor ratio to produce a unit if food (to = , / L, ) is greater than it is to produce a unit of cloth (to = T / Le ) in both countries, (T, / L. > T/ L , i.e., food is land intensive and cloth labor intensive) and (2.) The ratio of total land to total labor (f = 7 / L ) in the Home country is greater than it is in the foreign country (7* ), that is Home is land abundant and the foreign country is labor abundant (T / L > T* /[* ). Given the above information, answer the following questions.C. Heckscher-Ohlin Model. Suppose all the assumptions behind the model apply: 2 countries (Home and Foreign), 2 goods (food and cloth), 2 factors of production (labor and land), and each country has the same tastes, the same technology, and increasing costs of production. Also there are competitive markets in each country and industry and the supply of factors are fixed for each country. Moreover, assume the following: (1.) The land-labor ratio to produce a unit if food (to = , / L, ) is greater than it is to produce a unit of cloth (to = T / Le ) in both countries, (T, / L. > T/ L , i.e., food is land intensive and cloth labor intensive) and (2.) The ratio of total land to total labor (f = 7 / L ) in the Home country is greater than it is in the foreign country (7* ), that is Home is land abundant and the foreign country is labor abundant (T / L > T* /[* ). Given the above information, answer the following questions.(1) Consider Home produces clothing (C) and food (F) using labor (L) and capital (C). We assume there are constant returns to scale. The unit factor requirements for two goods are given by: GLC = 1, app =4, agc = 2, opp = 2. The endowments of Home are as follows: Factor endowments Labor Capital Home | 2,500 2,000 (1 point) a. Which good is relatively labor intensive? Which good is relatively capital intensive? (2 points) b. Find the equation(s) of Home's PPF and graph the PPF (You can place QC on the horizontal axis and Qp on the vertical axis). At which point on the PPF are both factors fully employed? (2 points) c. Suppose Home produces at the point that you find in b. According to Ry- bezynski theorem, what happens to the output mix if the total capital stock increases? (1 point) d. Suppose the autarky prices are given by Po = 10, Pp = 20. At which point on the PPF does Home produce? (2) Now suppose Foreign shares the same technology with Home (i.e., alg = 1, ajg = 4, "ko =2. okp = 2). The endowments of Foreign are given by: Factor endowments Labor | Capital Foreign 2,800 2,000 Two countries engage in free trade. The world relative price of clothing is given by Po/Pp = 1/2. (1 point) a. Which country is relatively labor abundant and which capital abundant? (1 point) b. Describe the pattern of trade between Home and Foreign. (2 points) c. Show graphically the production and consumption of Home under free trade. (1 points) d. Do both Home and Foreign benefit from trade? If not, which country gets worse off? (1 points) e. Does everyone in Foreign benefit from trade? If not, which group (workers or capital owners) gets worse off? (1 point) f. In which country are wages higher?(1) Consider Home produces clothing (C) and food (F) using labor (L) and capital (C). We assume there are constant returns to scale. The unit factor requirements for two goods are given by: GLC = 1, app =4, agc = 2, opp = 2. The endowments of Home are as follows: Factor endowments Labor Capital Home | 2,500 2,000 (1 point) a. Which good is relatively labor intensive? Which good is relatively capital intensive? (2 points) b. Find the equation(s) of Home's PPF and graph the PPF (You can place QC on the horizontal axis and Qp on the vertical axis). At which point on the PPF are both factors fully employed? (2 points) c. Suppose Home produces at the point that you find in b. According to Ry- bezynski theorem, what happens to the output mix if the total capital stock increases? (1 point) d. Suppose the autarky prices are given by Po = 10, Pp = 20. At which point on the PPF does Home produce? (2) Now suppose Foreign shares the same technology with Home (i.e., alg = 1, ajg = 4, "ko =2. okp = 2). The endowments of Foreign are given by: Factor endowments Labor | Capital Foreign 2,800 2,000 Two countries engage in free trade. The world relative price of clothing is given by Po/Pp = 1/2. (1 point) a. Which country is relatively labor abundant and which capital abundant? (1 point) b. Describe the pattern of trade between Home and Foreign. (2 points) c. Show graphically the production and consumption of Home under free trade. (1 points) d. Do both Home and Foreign benefit from trade? If not, which country gets worse off? (1 points) e. Does everyone in Foreign benefit from trade? If not, which group (workers or capital owners) gets worse off? (1 point) f. In which country are wages higher?4. A monopolist has a cost function of c(y) = cy so that its marginal costs are constant at $c per unit. The monopolist is operating at an output level where (= = 3. The government imposes a quantity tax of $6 per unit of output. (a) If the monopolist is facing linear demand curve, how much does the price rise? (b) If the monopolist has constant elasticity, how much doe the price rise? 5. *An economy has two kinds of consumers and two goods. Type A consumers have utility function UA(:1, 12) = 4x1 -(7)+ x2 and Type B consumers have utility function Up(21, 12) = 221 -(7) +12. Consumers can only consume nonnegative quantities. The price of good 2 is 1 and all consumers have incomes of 100. There are N type A consumers and N type B consumers. (a) Suppose that a monopolist can produce good 1 at a constant unit cost of c per unit and cannot engage in any kind of price discrimination. Find its optimal choice of price and quantity. For what values of c will it be true that it chooses to sell to both types of consumers? (b) Suppose that the monopolist uses a "two-part tariff" where a consumer must pay a lump sum k in order to be able to buy anything at all. A person who has paid the lump sum & can buy as much as he likes at a price p

Step by Step Solution

There are 3 Steps involved in it

Step: 1

blur-text-image

Get Instant Access with AI-Powered Solutions

See step-by-step solutions with expert insights and AI powered tools for academic success

Step: 2

blur-text-image

Step: 3

blur-text-image

Ace Your Homework with AI

Get the answers you need in no time with our AI-driven, step-by-step assistance

Get Started

Recommended Textbook for

Students also viewed these Economics questions