Question
Exercise 2. Income Changes (Quasilinear) Chocolate is definitely not considered an essential good, and being a small portion of overall income, its consumption does not
Exercise 2. Income Changes (Quasilinear)
Chocolate is definitely not considered an essential good, and being a small portion of overall income, its consumption does not particularly affect your overall budget. It definitely has diminishing marginal utility, as the intake of the tenth chocolate bar is less appetizing than the first you eat. You have a quasilinear utility, u = x1 + x2, where x1 is consumption of chocolate and x2 is consumption of everything else.
a)A unit of chocolate costs 50 cents (p1=0.5) and the price of everything else is normalized to 1 (p2=1). Given your budget constraint, m = x1p1 + x2p2, derive the demand function for chocolate and for everything else (income, m, is a variable).
b)Draw the budget constraints and optimal indifference curves for m=100, m'=200 and m''=300. Draw the income offer curve.
c)In two separate graphs illustrate the two Engel curves given the three income levels in part b.
d)Take the derivative with respect to m of both demand curves: x1(m)/m and x2(m)/m. Are the derivatives positive or negative? Are x1 and x2 inferior or normal goods?
e)What is the share of expenditure in goods (p1x1/m), and the share of expenditure in services (p2x2/m)? How does it vary with the increase in m? Are these luxury or necessary goods?
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