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Price equals marginal utilty

Updated: 12/15/2022
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Generally, yes. Marginal utility is the utility one gets out of "one more" of a good. For instance, if I have no food, my marginal utility of a loaf of bread is extremely high, so I will pay (price) a huge amount of money for it. On the other hand, if I have a pantry full of loafs of bread, my marginal utility for a loaf of bread would be very low, and I wouldn't buy bread unless it was extremely cheap.

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Q: Price equals marginal utilty
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How did muckrakers contribute to the rise of progressivism in the early years of 20th centurey?

increase prices, reduce production, and realise positive economic profits. Supply curve: in a perfectly competitive market there is a well defined supply function with a one-to-one relationship between price and quantity supplied. In a monopolistic market no such supply relationship exists. A monopolist cannot trace a short-term supply curve because for a given price there is not a unique quantity supplied. As Pindyck and Rubenfeld note, a change in demand "can lead to changes in prices with no change in output, changes in output with no change in price or both". Monopolies produce where marginal revenue equals marginal costs. For a specific demand curve the supply "curve" would be the price-quantity combination at the point where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. If the demand curve shifted the marginal revenue curve would shift as well and a new equilibrium and supply "point" would be established. The locus of these points would not be a supply curve in any conventional sense.The most significant distinction between a PC company and a monopoly is that the monopoly has a downward-sloping demand curve rather than the "perceived" perfectly elastic curve of the PC company. Practically all the variations mentioned above relate to this fact. If there is a downward-sloping demand curve then by necessity there is a distinct marginal revenue curve. The implications of this fact are best made manifest with a linear demand curve. Assume that the inverse demand curve is of the form x = a − by. Then the total revenue curve is TR = ay − by2 and the marginal revenue curve is thus MR = a − 2by. From this several things are evident. First, the marginal revenue curve has the same y intercept as the inverse demand curve. Second, the slope of the marginal revenue curve is twice that of the inverse demand curve. Third, the x intercept of the marginal revenue curve is half that of the inverse demand curve. What is not quite so evident is that the marginal revenue curve is below the inverse demand curve at all points. Since all companies maximise profits by equating MR and MC it must be the case that at the profit-maximizing quantity MR and MC are less than price, which further implies that a monopoly produces less quantity at a higher price than if the market were perfectly competitive. The fact that a monopoly has a downward-sloping demand curve means that the relationship between total revenue and output for a monopoly is much different than that of competitive companies. Total revenue equals price times quantity. A competitive company has a perfectly elastic demand curve meaning that total revenue is proportional to output. Thus the total revenue curve for a competitive company is a ray with a slope equal to the market price. A competitive company can sell all the output it desires at the market price. For a monopoly to increase sales it must reduce price. Thus the total revenue curve for a monopoly is a parabola that begins at the origin and reaches a maximum value then continuously decreases until total revenue is again zero. Total revenue has its maximum value when the slope of the total revenue function is zero. The slope of the total revenue function is marginal revenue. So the revenue maximizing quantity and price occur when MR = 0. For example, assume that the monopoly's demand function is P = 50 − 2Q. The total revenue function would be TR = 50Q − 2Q2 and marginal revenue would be 50 − 4Q. Setting marginal revenue equal to zero we have 50 − 4 Q = 0 {\displaystyle 50-4Q=0} − 4 Q = − 50 {\displaystyle -4Q=-50} Q = 12.5 {\displaystyle Q=12.5} So the revenue maximizing quantity for the monopoly is 12.5 units and the revenue maximizing price is 25. A company with a monopoly does not experience price pressure from competitors, although it may experience pricing pressure from potential competition. If a company increases prices too much, then others may enter the market if they are able to provide the same good, or a substitute, at a lesser price. The idea that monopolies in markets with easy entry need not be regulated against is known as the "revolution in monopoly theory".A monopolist can extract only one premium, and getting into complementary markets does not pay. That is, the total profits a monopolist could earn if it sought to leverage its monopoly in one market by monopolizing a complementary market are equal to the extra profits it could earn anyway by charging more for the monopoly product itself. However, the one monopoly profit theorem is not true if customers in the monopoly good are stranded or poorly informed, or if the tied good has high fixed costs. A pure monopoly has the same economic rationality of perfectly competitive companies, i.e. to optimise a profit function given some constraints. By the assumptions of increasing marginal costs, exogenous inputs' prices, and control concentrated on a single agent or entrepreneur, the optimal decision is to equate the marginal cost and marginal revenue of production. Nonetheless, a pure monopoly can – unlike a competitive company – alter the market price for its own convenience: a decrease of production results in a higher price. In the economics' jargon, it is said that pure monopolies have "a downward-sloping demand". An important consequence of such behaviour is that typically a monopoly selects a higher price and lesser quantity of output than a price-taking company; again, less is available at a higher price. A monopoly chooses that price that maximizes the difference between total revenue and total cost. The basic markup rule (as measured by the Lerner index) can be expressed as P − M C P = − 1 E d {\displaystyle {\frac {P-MC}{P}}={\frac {-1}{E_{d}}}} , where E d {\displaystyle E_{d}} is the price elasticity of demand the firm faces. The markup rules indicate that the ratio between profit margin and the price is inversely proportional to the price elasticity of demand. The implication of the rule is that the more elastic the demand for the product the less pricing power the monopoly has. Market power is the ability to increase the product's price above marginal cost without losing all customers. Perfectly competitive (PC) companies have zero market power when it comes to setting prices. All companies of a PC market are price takers. The price is set by the interaction of demand and supply at the market or aggregate level. Individual companies simply take the price determined by the market and produce that quantity of output that maximizes the company's profits. If a PC company attempted to increase prices above the market level all its customers would abandon the company and purchase at the market price from other companies. A monopoly has considerable although not unlimited market power. A monopoly has the power to set prices or quantities although not both. A monopoly is a price maker. The monopoly is the market and prices are set by the monopolist based on their circumstances and not the interaction of demand and supply. The two primary factors determining monopoly market power are the company's demand curve and its cost structure.Market power is the ability to affect the terms and conditions of exchange so that the price of a product is set by a single company (price is not imposed by the market as in perfect competition). Although a monopoly's market power is great it is still limited by the demand side of the market. A monopoly has a negatively sloped demand curve, not a perfectly inelastic curve. Consequently, any price increase will result in the loss of some customers. Price discrimination allows a monopolist to increase its profit by charging higher prices for identical goods to those who are willing or able to pay more. For example, most economic textbooks cost more in the United States than in developing countries like Ethiopia. In this case, the publisher is using its government-granted copyright monopoly to price discriminate between the generally wealthier American economics students and the generally poorer Ethiopian economics students. Similarly, most patented medications cost more in the U.S. than in other countries with a (presumed) poorer customer base. Typically, a high general price is listed, and various market segments get varying discounts. This is an example of framing to make the process of charging some people higher prices more socially acceptable. Perfect price discrimination would allow the monopolist to charge each customer the exact maximum amount they would be willing to pay. This would allow the monopolist to extract all the consumer surplus of the market. A domestic example would be the cost of airplane flights in relation to their takeoff time; the closer they are to flight, the higher the plane tickets will cost, discriminating against late planners and often business flyers. While such perfect price discrimination is a theoretical construct, advances in information technology and micromarketing may bring it closer to the realm of possibility. Partial price discrimination can cause some customers who are inappropriately pooled with high price customers to be excluded from the market. For example, a poor student in the U.S. might be excluded from purchasing an economics textbook at the U.S. price, which the student may have been able to purchase at the Ethiopian price. Similarly, a wealthy student in Ethiopia may be able to or willing to buy at the U.S. price, though naturally would hide such a fact from the monopolist so as to pay the reduced third world price. These are deadweight losses and decrease a monopolist's profits. Deadweight loss is considered detrimental to society and market participation. As such, monopolists have substantial economic interest in improving their market information and market segmenting.There is important information for one to remember when considering the monopoly model diagram (and its associated conclusions) displayed here. The result that monopoly prices are higher, and production output lesser, than a competitive company follow from a requirement that the monopoly not charge different prices for different customers. That is, the monopoly is restricted from engaging in price discrimination (this is termed first degree price discrimination, such that all customers are charged the same amount). If the monopoly were permitted to charge individualised prices (this is termed third degree price discrimination), the quantity produced, and the price charged to the marginal customer, would be identical to that of a competitive company, thus eliminating the deadweight loss; however, all gains from trade (social welfare) would accrue to the monopolist and none to the consumer. In essence, every consumer would be indifferent between going completely without the product or service and being able to purchase it from the monopolist.As long as the price elasticity of demand for most customers is less than one in absolute value, it is advantageous for a company to increase its prices: it receives more money for fewer goods. With a price increase, price elasticity tends to increase, and in the optimum case above it will be greater than one for most customers.A company maximizes profit by selling where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. A company that does not engage in price discrimination will charge the profit maximizing price, P*, to all its customers. In such circumstances there are customers who would be willing to pay a higher price than P* and those who will not pay P* but would buy at a lower price. A price discrimination strategy is to charge less price sensitive buyers a higher price and the more price sensitive buyers a lower price. Thus additional revenue is generated from two sources. The basic problem is to identify customers by their willingness to pay. The purpose of price discrimination is to transfer consumer surplus to the producer. Consumer surplus is the difference between the value of a good to a consumer and the price the consumer must pay in the market to purchase it. Price discrimination is not limited to monopolies. Market power is a company's ability to increase prices without losing all its customers. Any company that has market power can engage in price discrimination. Perfect competition is the only market form in which price discrimination would be impossible (a perfectly competitive company has a perfectly elastic demand curve and has no market power).There are three forms of price discrimination. First degree price discrimination charges each consumer the maximum price the consumer is willing to pay. Second degree price discrimination involves quantity discounts. Third degree price discrimination involves grouping consumers according to willingness to pay as measured by their price elasticities of demand and charging each group a different price. Third degree price discrimination is the most prevalent type.There are three conditions that must be present for a company to engage in successful price discrimination. First, the company must have market power. Second, the company must be able to sort customers according to their willingness to pay for the good. Third, the firm must be able to prevent resell. A company must have some degree of market power to practice price discrimination. Without market power a company cannot charge more than the market price. Any market structure characterized by a downward sloping demand curve has market power – monopoly, monopolistic competition and oligopoly. The only market structure that has no market power is perfect competition.A company wishing to practice price discrimination must be able to prevent middlemen or brokers from acquiring the consumer surplus for themselves. The company accomplishes this by preventing or limiting resale. Many methods are used to prevent resale. For instance, persons are required to show photographic identification and a boarding pass before boarding an airplane. Most travelers assume that this practice is strictly a matter of security. However, a primary purpose in requesting photographic identification is to confirm that the ticket purchaser is the person about to board the airplane and not someone who has repurchased the ticket from a discount buyer.The inability to prevent resale is the largest obstacle to successful price discrimination. Companies have however developed numerous methods to prevent resale. For example, universities require that students show identification before entering sporting events. Governments may make it illegal to resell tickets or products. In Boston, Red Sox baseball tickets can only be resold legally to the team. The three basic forms of price discrimination are first, second and third degree price discrimination. In first degree price discrimination the company charges the maximum price each customer is willing to pay. The maximum price a consumer is willing to pay for a unit of the good is the reservation price. Thus for each unit the seller tries to set the price equal to the consumer's reservation price. Direct information about a consumer's willingness to pay is rarely available. Sellers tend to rely on secondary information such as where a person lives (postal codes); for example, catalog retailers can use mail high-priced catalogs to high-income postal codes. First degree price discrimination most frequently occurs in regard to professional services or in transactions involving direct buyer-seller negotiations. For example, an accountant who has prepared a consumer's tax return has information that can be used to charge customers based on an estimate of their ability to pay.In second degree price discrimination or quantity discrimination customers are charged different prices based on how much they buy. There is a single price schedule for all consumers but the prices vary depending on the quantity of the good bought. The theory of second degree price discrimination is a consumer is willing to buy only a certain quantity of a good at a given price. Companies know that consumer's willingness to buy decreases as more units are purchased. The task for the seller is to identify these price points and to reduce the price once one is reached in the hope that a reduced price will trigger additional purchases from the consumer. For example, sell in unit blocks rather than individual units. In third degree price discrimination or multi-market price discrimination the seller divides the consumers into different groups according to their willingness to pay as measured by their price elasticity of demand. Each group of consumers effectively becomes a separate market with its own demand curve and marginal revenue curve. The firm then attempts to maximize profits in each segment by equating MR and MC, Generally the company charges a higher price to the group with a more price inelastic demand and a relatively lesser price to the group with a more elastic demand. Examples of third degree price discrimination abound. Airlines charge higher prices to business travelers than to vacation travelers. The reasoning is that the demand curve for a vacation traveler is relatively elastic while the demand curve for a business traveler is relatively inelastic. Any determinant of price elasticity of demand can be used to segment markets. For example, seniors have a more elastic demand for movies than do young adults because they generally have more free time. Thus theaters will offer discount tickets to seniors. Assume that by a uniform pricing system the monopolist would sell five units at a price of $10 per unit. Assume that his marginal cost is $5 per unit. Total revenue would be $50, total costs would be $25 and profits would be $25. If the monopolist practiced price discrimination he would sell the first unit for $50 the second unit for $40 and so on. Total revenue would be $150, his total cost would be $25 and his profit would be $125.00. Several things are worth noting. The monopolist acquires all the consumer surplus and eliminates practically all the deadweight loss because he is willing to sell to anyone who is willing to pay at least the marginal cost. Thus the price discrimination promotes efficiency. Secondly, by the pricing scheme price = average revenue and equals marginal revenue. That is the monopolist behaving like a perfectly competitive company. Thirdly, the discriminating monopolist produces a larger quantity than the monopolist operating by a uniform pricing scheme


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Related questions

Why do the demand and marginal revenue curves coincide?

Because in Pure Competition, Demand equals Price, and Price equals Marginal Revenue;hence, Demand equals Marginal revenue.


How do you achieve allocative efficiency?

Allocative efficiency is an output level where the price equals the marginal cost of production. This is because the price that consumers are willing to pay is equivalent to the marginal utility that they get. Therefore the optimal distribution is achieved when the marginal utility of the good equals the marginal cost.


What is the relationship between marginal utility and demand?

There is a close relationship between the marginal utility and price of a commodity.The additional satisfaction from the consumption of an additional unit of the commodity is called marginal utilty. Price means the value of the goods expressed in the terms of money.Price of all units of he same goods of consumption are more or less identical.It means that the consumer pays the same price for all the units of the same goods of consumption. But marginal utility of the goods of consumption start diminishing as the consumer increase the units of consumption of the commodity.Therefore the consumer will like to pay that price for the commodity,which is equal to the marginal utility he gets from the commodity.If the price of the commodity are higher than the marginal utility he derives from the commodity he will not like to purchase the commodity. In this way there is a clod\se relation between the marginal utility and the price of the commodity.


Firms will employ an input up to the point where?

The input's price equals its marginal revenue product


Why monopoly is allocatively inefficient relative to perfectly competitive market?

A monopoly produces at a point where marginal revenue equals marginal cost, they don't charge this price, but charge a higher price that corresponds with the demand they face. Therefore they produce less and charge more than a competitive firm that equates the price to marginal cost.


A firm will maximize profits by employing the quantity of each input where the marginal does what?

revenue equals the price of each input


How does a monopolistically competitive firm determine its profit-maximizing price?

price = marginal revenue. marginal revenue > average revenue. price > marginal cost. total revenue > marginal co


Why average revanue is equal to marginal revanue in imperfect competiton?

Average Revenue (AR) is equals to Marginal Revenue (MR) in Perfect competition (PC) not imperfect competition. AR can be derived from the formula= Total revenue(TR) / Quantity. Since TR = Price x Quantity, the formula now will be Price x Quantity/ Quantity and naturally, AR equals to Price. Marginal Revenue can be measured by the formula= Change in total revenue/ Change in quantity (which is 1). Since the change in total revenue will be equals to the price of the product, MR in this case will be the Price of the product. From here we can see that Price = MR = AR = Demand.


If selling price equals 120 percent What is the percentage of his profit?

It depends on 120 per cent of what! 120% of marginal cost? total cost? normal selling price?


Why can price be substituted for marginal revenue in the MR equals MC rule?

It can be substituted because the industry would become purely competitive.


What is the formula to find the marginal cost?

Marginal Cost = Marginal Revenue, or the derivative of the Total Revenue, which is price x quantity.


How to use the concept of price elasticity of demand to maximize revenue?

Price elasticity of demand is a way to determine marginal revenue. Optimal revenue and, more importantly, optimal profit will occur to the point when marginal revenue = marginal cost, or the price elasticity of demand < 1.