Homework 2

Econ 100
Homework 2
From the book: review questions in chapters 2 and 5
1) You have an income of $40 to spend on two commodities. Commodity 1 costs $10 per unit, and
commodity 2 costs $5 per unit.
a) Write down your budget equation.

b) If you spent all your income on commodity 1, how much could you buy?
c) If you spent all of your income on commodity 2, how much could you buy?
d) Use blue ink to draw your budget line on graph paper.
e) Suppose that the price of commodity 1 falls to $5 while everything else stays the same. Write down
your new budget equation.
f) Based on your answer to e) use red ink to draw your new budget line on the same graph.
g) Suppose that the amount you are allowed to spend falls to $30, while the prices of both commodties
remain at $5. Write down your budget equation.
h) Use black ink to draw this new budget line.
2) Edmund Stench consumes two commodities, namely garbage and punk rock video cassettes. He
doesn’t actually eat the former but keeps it in his backyard where it is eaten by billy goats and assorted
vermin. The reason that he accepts the garbage is that people pay him $2 per sack for taking it. Edmund
can accept as much garbage as he wishes at that price. He has no other source of income. Video
cassettes cost him $6 each.
a) If Edmund accepts zero sacks of garbage, how many video cassettes can he buy?
b) If he accepts 15 sacks of garbage, how many video cassettes can he buy?
c) Write down the equation for his budget line.
d) Draw Edmund’s budget line and shade in his budget set.
3) If you think Edmund is odd, consider his brother Emmett. Emmett consumes speeches by politicians
and university administrators. He is paid $1 per hour for listening to politicians and $2 per hour for
listening to university administrators. (Emmett is in great demand to help fill empty chairs in public
lectures because of his distinguished appearance and his ability to refrain from making rude noises.)
Emmett consumes one good for which he must pay. We have agreed not to disclose what that good is, but
we can tell you that it costs $15 per unit and we shall call it Good X. In addition to what he is paid for
consuming speeches, Emmett receives a pension of $50 per week.
a) Write down a budget equation stating those combinations of the three commodities, Good X, hours
of speeches by politicians (P), and hours of speeches by university administrators (A) that Emmett
could afford to consume per week.
b) On graph paper, draw a two-dimensional diagram showing the locus of consumptions of the two
kinds of speeches that would be possible for Emmett if he consumed 10 units of Good X per week.
4) Charlie’s utility function for apples (A) and bananas (B) is AB. Suppose that the price of apples is 1
and the price of bananas is 2, and that Charlie’s income is 40.
a) On graph paper, use blue ink to draw Charlie’s budget line. Plot a few points on the indifference
curve that gives Charlie a utility of 150 and sketch this curve with red ink. Now plot a few points on the
indifference curve that gives Charlie a utility of 300 and sketch this curve with black ink or pencil.
b) Can Charlie afford any bundles that give him a utility of 150?
c) Can Charlie afford any bundles that give him a utility of 300?
d) On your graph, mark a point that Charlie can afford and that gives him a higher utility than 150.
Label that point M.
e) Neither of the indifference curves that you drew is tangent to Charlie’s budget line. Now try to find
one that is. At any point, (A,B), Charlie’s marginal rate of substitution is a function of A and B . In fact,
if you calculate the ratio of marginal utilities for Charlie’s utility function, you will find that Charlie’s
marginal rate of substitution is MRS(A,B)=-B/A. This is the slope of his indifference curve at (A,B).
The slope of Charlie’s budget line is ____________. (Give a numerical answer).
f) Write an equation that implies that the budget line is tangent to an indifference curve at (A,B). (There
are many solutions to this equation. Each of these solutions corresponds to a point on a different
indifference curve. Use pencil to draw a line that passes through all of these points)
g) What is Charlie’s utility if he consumes the bundle (20,10)?
h) On the graph, use red ink to draw his indifference curve through (20,10). Does this indifference curve
cross Charlie’s budget line, just touch it, or never touch it?
5) Ambrose consumes nuts and berries. His utility function for nuts and berries is U(n,b)= 4 n + b ,
where n is his consumption of nuts and b is his consumption of berries.
a) The commodity bundle (25,0) give Ambrose a utility of 20. Other points that give him the same
utility are (16,4), (9,___________), (4,___________), (1,_________) and (0,______________). Plot
these points on a graph and draw a red indifference curve through them.
b) Suppose that the price of a unit of nuts is 1, the price of a unit of berries is 2 and Ambrose’s income is
24. Draw Ambrose’s budget line with blue ink. How many units of nuts does he choose to buy?
c) How many units of berries will he buy?
d) Find some points on the indifference curve that gives him a utility of 25 and sketch this indifference
curve in red.
e) Now suppose that the prices are as before, but Ambrose’s income is 34. Draw his new budget line
(with pencil). How many units of nuts will he choose? How many units of berries?
f) Now let’s explore the case where there is a boundary solution. Suppose that the price of nuts is still 1
and the price of berries is 2, but Ambrose’s income is only 9. Draw his budget line in blue. Sketch the
indifference curve that passes through the point (9,0). What is the slope of his indifference curve at the
point (9,0)?
g) What is the slope of his budget line at that point?
h) Which is steeper at this point, the budget line or the indifference curve?
i) Can Ambrose afford any bundles that he likes better than the point (9,0)?
1 1
6) Henry’s utility function is U(X,Y)= x 2 y 2 . The price of X is 8 and the price of Y is 4.
a) What is the marginal utility of X?
b) What is the marginal utility of Y?
c) Solve for X and Y in terms of I.
d) What do the equations for X and Y represent?
7) Clara’s utility function is U(X,Y)=(X+2)(Y+1). The price of each good is $1 and Clara has an income
of 11. Find the utility maximizing amount of X and Y that Clara will consume. How much X and Y will
she consume if the price of X=$1 but the price of Y = $2?

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Econ 100

From the book: review questions in chapters 2 and 5

a) Write down your budget equation.

g) What is Charlie’s utility if he consumes the bundle (20,10)?

c) How many units of berries will he buy?

g) What is the slope of his budget line at that point?

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