Kaplan AB224 - Unit 4 Assignment Elasticity of Demand

Questions

1. Jane has been working all day, missing both her breakfast and lunch. Finally able to leave work, after being required to work a couple of hour’s overtime, she is starving. Jane has $20 in her pocket, so she stops at a local fast food restaurant and orders a grilled chicken sandwich (somewhat healthy) and fries (not so healthy). As she sits down to eat them, a Kaplan University student approaches her and tells her that she is doing a research project for her microeconomics course, and would like to ask Jane a few quick questions. Jane agrees and the student asks what “score” (Marginal Utility) from 1 to 100 would she give as her satisfaction level with the 1^st sandwich and the 1^st fries? After eating that order, Jane is still hungry and orders a second chicken sandwich and another fries. Again, the student asks Jane to give her new scores. Since Jane has not eaten all day, she is hungry enough to order a third round of food and again gives “scores” to the inquisitive student.

Below is the Kaplan student’s completed experiment tally sheet of Jane’s marginal utility “scores” and the calculation of her marginal utility per dollar, given that each sandwich costs $4.00 and each order of fries costs $2.00, along with her budget of $20. The student filled in the shaded cells based on Jane’s responses, then computed the values in the remaining cells. Using this information, answer the following questions:

a. Is Jane maximizing her utility? Explain your reasoning and show any calculations.

b. If Jane is not maximizing her utility, remembering the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility, would she be better off to buy one less chicken sandwich and one more fry? Explain your reasoning and show any calculations.

c. If Jane is not maximizing her utility with the original purchase combination, remembering the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility, would she be better off buying just one more fry? Explain your reasoning and show any calculations.

d. If Jane is not maximizing her utility with the original purchase, remembering the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility, would she be better off buying one less fries and one more chicken sandwich? Explain your reasoning and show any calculations.