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This is a homework question -- but it's an interesting one that's worth thinking about.

The elasticity of demand is the rate at which the quantity demanded changes when the price increases or decreases. It's affected by a number of things, most notably the degree to which the item in question has substitutes, or is "essential" or merely "luxurious". For example, most people will still purchase almost the same amount of gasoline whether the price goes up or down 25%. The demand for gasoline is fairly INELASTIC, because gasoline is fairly essential, with few good substitutes.


Now comes your question about "standard of living": in a word, would you buy -- compared with a rich person -- a much different amount of gasoline than you did before, if the price changed by 25% (and you're poor)? If you're poor, your purchases of gasoline are already cut to the bone, aren't they? So an increase of 25% in price might just force you to accept no gasoline, even if you really need it, whereas a rich person wouldn't notice the price increase. In this case, the poor person's elasticity of demand is GREATER for being poor. It also works in reverse. If now the price of gasoline goes DOWN by 25%, the poor person might find himself able to afford gasoline again, and so increases his quantity of gasoline purchased. Contrariwise, the rich person wouldn't notice the change.

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Q: How standard of living affects the elasticity of demand?
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