The McCawber family is having a tough time making ends meet. They spend $100 a week on food and $50 on other things. A new welfare program has been introduced that gives them a choice between receiving a grant of $50 per week that they can spend any way they want, and buying any number of $2 food coupons for $1 apiece. (They naturally are not allowed to resell these coupons.) Food is a normal good for the McCawbers. As a family friend, you have been asked to help them decide on which option to choose. Drawing on your growing fund of economic knowledge, you proceed as follows.
(a) On the graph below, draw their old budget line in red ink and label their current choice C. Now use black ink to draw the budget line that they would have with the grant. If they chose the coupon option, how much food could they buy if they spent all their money on food coupons? ______. How much could they spend on other things if they bought no food? _______. Use blue ink to draw their budget line if they choose the coupon option.
(b) Using the fact that food is a normal good for the McCawbers, and knowing what they purchased before, darken the portion of the black budget line where their consumption bundle could possibly be if they chose the lump-sum grant option. Label the ends of this line segment A and B.
(c) After studying the graph you have drawn, you report to the McCawbers. “I have enough information to be able to tell you which choice to make. You should choose the ____ because _________________.
(d) Mr. McCawber thanks you for your help and then asks, “Would you have been able to tell me what to do if you hadn’t known whether food was a normal good for us?” On the axes below, draw the same budget lines you drew on the diagram above, but draw indifference curves for which food is not a normal good and for which the McCawbers would be better off with the program you advised them not to take.