Questions tagged [microeconomics]
Microeconomics is a branch of economics that studies the market behavior of individual actors (usually firms and consumers) and the aggregation of their actions in different institutional frameworks (usually the market).
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Replicating a Fertility Choice Model
I'm working on the Ahtiuv&Moav work of fertility choice and economic growth.
When I want to maximice the main problem I can not do it because I dont know which mathematical tool I should use.
...
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1answer
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What is the graphic intuition behind Marginal rate of subsitution
So I think I understand the math, but I don't understand the intuition on a 3d graph. Why does the ratio of partial derivatives give us a tangent line on a level curve(indifference curve)? My ...
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Returns to Scale off a figure
This is the table given for levels of output for different levels of inputs.
\begin{pmatrix}
Q & K & L\\
100 & 3 & 6\\
200 & 5 & 10\\
300 & 7.5 & 15 \\
400 & 10 &...
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What is an example of a choice which is not necessitated by scarcity?
I am first year economics student and for the past month we have had it constantly drilled into us that all choices have an opportunity cost and thus they are all necessitated by scarcity. Thus when I ...
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Elasticity of substitution of a general production function with labor-augmenting technological progress
I am following and trying to fully understand a famous and interesting work of Bentolila and Saint-paul (2003). They try to explain movements of the factor's share in terms of a relationship between ...
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1answer
177 views
Calculate optimal discount for product bundling
So recently I made some rules with my transaction data. Based on it I can determine which products are profitable to bundle it together.
But even though I know e.g. product A→ product B, are there ...
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1answer
31 views
What data/factors/attributes do the professionals monitor in a top-down analysis on the macroeconomics?
I am learning to do top-down analysis on a number of sectors in the US equity markets. I have never done it before and I would appreciate it if some professionals can share their experiences with me.
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1answer
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How do I use a monopsony (product market) graph to show that a firm has more buying power over a supplier?
For instance, Tesco has more buying power over British farmers. How would I show this on a monopsony graph where Tesco has a surplus?
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Percentage of workforce change, with two PPFs
A hypothetical economy produces two goods, X and Y. The performance (yield) for every worker is steady, and every worker for Y can produce 10 units of product. If $L_x+L_Y=200 $ (meaning that the ...
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Monotonic transformation of utility functions [duplicate]
Why taking monotonic transformation of a utility function does not change marginal rate of substitution?
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1answer
115 views
Can we have a Non-Reflexive Preference Relation?
I've been thinking about preferences alot recently and have been specifically thinking about the reflexivity requirement.
That is:
$$x \succsim x$$
Though this is apparent and obvious, I have been ...
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1answer
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By buying stocks, am I as an individual measurably affecting the economy?
I know that participating in an IPO is directly helping the company, because my money is going straight into their bank account. I know that the stock market as a whole has an effect on the economy. ...
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Can we consider a supermarket as a market?
Good morning,
I have been reading a book in which the author said that "the supermarket is not a market, because despit the large number of buyers, the seller is unique".
So, I've been wondering ...
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If public roads are public goods, in what way are they non-rivalrous?
I get why, say, the military is a public good, but I don't get why public roads are public goods, since they can't be non-rivalrous, given that at any time only a subset of the population can actually ...
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1answer
99 views
Consumer Utility Maximization equivalent of economies of scope
Economies of scope captures the idea of having efficiency in variety. I've come across this idea only in producer theory to capture the idea that companies may benefit from their ability to reduce ...
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7answers
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Seminal papers that later were proven to contain errors
I was reading on institutions, and I came across Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (AJR) paper on The Colonial Origins of comparative development: An Empirical Investigation, and this paper seemed so '...
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Grouping students by teacher in PISA microdata
I'm looking to group the data on the individual students that participated in PISA 2018 according to their respective class or teacher.
The data files are available for SPSS and SAS on this page, ...
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1answer
106 views
Does Preference have a Hierarchy? A Silly Question
I have what is probably a very silly question, but I have gone down the rabbit hole and can’t get back out.....
Is there is a hierarchy of preference, and within each level of choice do we reset the ...
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1answer
52 views
How to calculate CRRA bounds from Holt and Laury (2002) type lottery?
Lottery is between:
Option A: a certain choice of £5
Option B: £10 with probability 0.1 and £1 with probability 0.9
The probability of receiving £10 increases in each subsequent choice.
How do I ...
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1answer
56 views
Difference(s) between Rational Expectations Equilibrium and Nash equilibium
What is the major difference between the notion of rational expectations equilibrium and Nash equilibium? And why do we, only, have a rational expectation about the first moment (the price) in the ...
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1answer
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Constant Elasticity of Substitution (non-special cases)
I am trying to better understand the CES function:
$$Y_{t}=C\left[\pi\left(A_{t}^{K} K_{t}\right)^{\frac{\sigma-1}{\sigma}}+(1-\pi)\left(A_{t}^{L} L_{t}\right)^{\frac{\sigma-1}{\sigma}}\right]^{\frac{...
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1answer
60 views
Categorical variable as explanatory variable (right hand side)
In a linear probability model, or any sort of regression, one can use fixed effect estimation by simply adding in a STATA code i.something. This "something" can be either a village, a county or a ...
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34 views
Proving ranking using completness and transivity
The book by Jehle and Reny says that one can proof the ranking of consumption bundles using the axiom of completness and transivity.
But the have not proved this in the book and I also have a hard ...
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1answer
113 views
General Equilibrium Involving Production
I need a little conceptual clarification.
For a standard $N*K*M$ general equilibrium model, would an allocation, say, $y^k$ be Pareto Optimal if it does not solve $max(py^k)$?
I understand that the ...
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2answers
130 views
Difference between direct and indirect utility
What is the difference between direct and indirect utility? Following the advanced microeconomics textbook Jehle and Reny I can not understand either the intuition or the math definition. It confuses ...
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1answer
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How do different Indifference Curves relate to each other?
We note the following graph
There are three different Indifference Curves on this graph.
An indifference curve shows a combination of two goods that give a
consumer equal satisfaction and ...
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2answers
97 views
How to estimate loss of customers due to customer support inefficiency?
I have a data about customers and their activity on a website for a two-year period. Also, I have a customer support work evaluation data for a shorter period of that two-year period. The question is:
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1answer
69 views
Mathematical framework for modelling the relationship between price and sales of a product
In my job as a data scientist, I am required to model the relationship between the price of a product and the sales or number of unit sold. I am trying to build a simplistic model, the assumptions of ...
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2answers
65 views
Why is discriminating monopoly better than competitive markets for producers?
In intermediate microeconomics by Hal Varian, It is said that discriminating monopoly is better than competitive markets for producers. Why so?
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1answer
134 views
Why is the marginal utility of money assumed to be constant in Marshallian Theory of Consumer Behaviour
While studying the Marshallian Theory of Consumer Behaviour, I came across the assumption that the marginal utility of money is assumed to be constant. Can someone please explain why is this so?
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1answer
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Can $u(x) = \sqrt{x_1 x_2} + \sqrt{x_3 x_4}$ be solved by Kuhn–Tucker conditions?
Consider
$\max_{x_1, x_2, x_3, x_4} u(x) = \sqrt{x_1 x_2} + \sqrt{x_3 x_4}$
s.t. $\; p_1x_1 + p_2x_2 + p_3x_3 + p_4x_4 \le w$
I know we can solve the max problem through separately considering ...
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261 views
eBay economics - total revenue impact from expanding ecosystem by 1 seller
While I think my question is straight forward, I'm guessing the answer to it is anything but. Thanks in advance for any insight you may be able to offer, even if it's just a directional assist. Here'...
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1answer
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What guarantees that endowed agents have non-zero prices in an Arrow-Debreu Economy
In my research I am trying to find minimal conditions to guarantee a quasi-equilibrium must always be a typical Arrow-Debreu equilibria in a rather specific production setting.
This may be rather ...
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1answer
53 views
Intuition: Can someone explain me this contradiction please?
(This is about price elasticity of demand) Both figures are demand curves. In figure 1, the curve includes both high elasticity (|E|>1) and low elasticity (|E|<1) but in figure 2, the curve is ...
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1answer
57 views
Production Possibility Frontier for 3 goods
Is it possible to construct a Production Possibility Frontier (PPF) for 3 goods? Would this require a 3D graph and a part of a sphere, in one quadrant (as opposed to the usual 2D plot, with a part of ...
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1answer
95 views
Monopsony diagram curves
Why is the marginal cost curve not the same as the supply curve?
My personal explanation is that since the marginal cost curve is cost of producing each new product, the supply curve just represents ...
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1answer
48 views
Why is the opportunity cost 0 in this case?
My book says that the opportunity cost of purchase of a specialized equipment that has no alternative use is zero and hence such an expenditure is a sunk cost. However, while calculating the user cost ...
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Given a demand curve determine the optimal total amount and price of $q_1$ and $q_2$
Given a demand curve for a monopolist
$$
P(Q) = 120 - 3Q
$$
where $Q = q_1 + q_2$ with two fabrics with the following marginal cost
$$
MC_1(q_1) = 10 + 20q_1 \\
MC_2(q_2) = 60 + 5q_2
$$
I have to ...
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1answer
80 views
Quasi-concavity of profit function
I'm doing a simple exercise from my textbook: suppose the revenue function is $R(p)=p^{1-\epsilon}$ with $\epsilon > 0$. Suppose the cost function is convex. Show that the profit function is quasi-...
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2answers
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Questions about the Edgeworth box
I have some doubts about the Edgeworth box, it's a newbie one so thanks in advance for the patience. In case, I'm confused if we can count the root of the contract curve (point M) as one of the ...
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How does interest rates impact investment
How does a decrease in interest rates decrease investment rates? This is how I believe a liquidity trap works, not sure if it is correct.
Thank you
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1answer
53 views
Regarding the Expenditure Function Underlying a Bliss Point
I've been looking at expenditure systems and have been really interested in the behaviour of the demand system that underlies bliss points:
Consider the bliss point utility function of the following ...
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1answer
40 views
Concavity of Cobb-Douglass Utility Function on Non-Open set
My textbook argues that the Cobb-Douglass utility function $u=(x1)^a(x2)^b$ with $a,b>0$ and $a+b<1$ is concave on $R2+$ by computing the Hessian and showing it to be negative semidefinite for ...
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2answers
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Does elasticity vary along the Demand/Supply curve or is it a summary statistic of a curve?
I know that the Demand curve has elastic and inelastic regions but when we say horizontal demand/supply curves are elastic or vertical curves are inelastic, in that case, does the elasticity still ...
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1answer
22 views
Financial Economics and International Economics
What is the difference of Financial Economics and International Economics? Why, How? What are the implications of these differences?
Will a model of international economics suddenly become a model of ...
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1answer
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Why the treasury is buying back its treasury securities during the coronavirus economic crisis?
I have read today that the treasury of my home country (not the US) started to buy back a significant amount of its Treasury securities (bonds, notes ...) from their owners. My question is what ...
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Study guide (and…) for “Intermediate Microeconomics with Calculus” by Varian
I have been googling study guides, solution manuals and other helpful material made by professors. But I have not found anything useful.
Q: Do you guys know anything that will make the book easier ...
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379 views
intertemporal utility maximisation
Adam's consumption period 1 and 2 are denoted by $c_1$ and $c_2$ respectively. His utility function is $U(c_1,c_2)=4c_1^{0.5} + c_2$
Ben earns an income of \$3 in period 1 and \$3 in period 2, ...
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Taking the partial derivative of the demand function
Define the demand function which maximizes x -> U(x) as:
$\sum_{i=1}^n$$p_i$$\zeta_i$(p, I) = I
According to my textbook if I differentiate this with respect to $p_j$ I will obtain,
$\zeta_j$(p, ...
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2answers
213 views
robinson economy with production
Facing a little bit of a problem with this questions, did a similar one BUT the utility function was not linear and got MRS dependent on goods (was not just a number) - here I am at a loss.
The ...
