Given your analysis, why might the use of care be viewed as ―excessive‖?
d. What sort of policies might prevent this excessive use?
1. The market for pizza is characterized by a downward-sloping demand curve and an upward-sloping supply curve.
a. Draw the competitive market equilibrium. Label the price, quantity, consumer surplus, and producer surplus. Is there any deadweight loss? Explain.
b. Suppose that the government forces each pizzeria to pay a $1 tax on each pizza sold. Illustrate the effect of this tax on the pizza market, being sure to label the consumer surplus, producer surplus, government revenue, and deadweight loss. How does each area compare to the pre-tax case?
c. If the tax were removed, pizza eaters and sellers would be better off, but the government would lose tax revenue. Suppose that consumers and producers voluntarily transferred some of their gains to the government. Could all parties (including the government) be better off than they were with a tax? Explain using the labeled areas in your graph.
2. Evaluate the following two statements. Do you agree? Why or why not?
a. ―A tax that has no deadweight loss cannot raise any revenue for the government.‖ b. ―A tax that raises no revenue for the government cannot have any deadweight loss.‖
3. Consider the market for rubber bands. a. If this market has very elastic supply and very inelastic demand, how would the burden of a tax on rubber bands be shared between consumers and producers? Use the tools of consumer surplus and producer surplus in your answer.
b. If this market has very inelastic supply and very elastic demand, how would the burden of a tax on rubber bands be shared between
consumers and producers? Contrast your answer with your answer to part (a).
4. Suppose that the government imposes a tax on heating oil.
a. Would the deadweight loss from this tax likely be greater in the first year after it is imposed or in the fifth year? Explain. b. Would the revenue collected from this tax likely be greater in the first year after it is imposed or in the fifth year? Explain. 5. After economics class one day, your friend suggests that taxing food would be a good way to raise revenue because the demand for food is quite inelastic. In what sense is taxing food a ―good‖ way to raise revenue? In what sense is it not a ―good‖ way to raise revenue?
6. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the late senator from New York, once introduced a bill that would levy a 10,000 percent tax on certain hollowtipped bullets.
a. Do you expect that this tax would raise much revenue? Why or why not?
b. Even if the tax would raise no revenue, why might Senator Moynihan have proposed it?
7. The government places a tax on the purchase of socks.
a. Illustrate the effect of this tax on equilibrium price and quantity in the sock market. Identify the following areas both before and after the imposition of the tax: total spending by consumers, total revenue for producers, and government tax revenue.
b. Does the price received by producers rise or fall? Can you tell whether total receipts for producers rise or fall? Explain.
c. Does the price paid by consumers rise or fall? Can you tell whether total spending by consumers rises or falls? Explain carefully. (Hint: Think about elasticity.) If total consumer spending falls, does consumer surplus rise? Explain.
8. Suppose the government currently raises $100 million through a 1-cent tax on widgets, and
another $100 million through a 10-cent tax on gadgets. If the government doubled the tax rate on widgets and eliminated the tax on gadgets, would it raise more tax revenue than it does today, less tax revenue, or the same amount? Explain.
9. This chapter analyzed the welfare effects of a tax on a good. Consider now the opposite policy. Suppose that the government subsidizes a good: For each unit of the good sold, the government pays $2 to the buyer. How does the subsidy affect consumer surplus, producer surplus, tax revenue, and total surplus? Does a subsidy lead to a deadweight loss? Explain.
10. Hotel rooms in Smalltown go for $100, and 1,000 rooms are rented on a typical day. a. To raise revenue, the mayor decides to charge hotels a tax of $10 per rented room. After the tax is imposed, the going rate for hotel rooms rises to $108, and the number of rooms rented falls to 900. Calculate the amount of revenue this tax raises for Smalltown and the deadweight loss of the tax. (Hint: The area of a triangle is 1?2 3 base 3 height.)
b. The mayor now doubles the tax to $20. The price rises to $116, and the number of rooms rented falls to 800. Calculate tax revenue and deadweight loss with this larger tax. Do they double, more than double, or less than double? Explain.
11. Suppose that a market is described by the following supply and demand equations:
QS 5 2P QD 5 300 – P
a. Solve for the equilibrium price and the equilibrium quantity.
b. Suppose that a tax of T is placed on buyers, so the new demand equation is
QD 5 300 – (P 1 T).
Solve for the new equilibrium. What happens to the price received by sellers, the price paid by buyers, and the quantity sold?
c. Tax revenue is T 3 Q. Use your answer to
part (b) to solve for tax revenue as a function of T. Graph this relationship for T between 0 and 300.
d. The deadweight loss of a tax is the area of the triangle between the supply and demand curves. Recalling that the area of a triangle is 1?2 3 base 3 height, solve for deadweight loss as a function of T. Graph this relationship for T between 0 and 300. (Hint: Looking sideways, the base of the deadweight loss triangle is T, and the height is the difference between the quantity sold with the tax and the quantity sold without the tax.) e. The government now levies a tax on this good of $200 per unit. Is this a good policy? Why or why not? Can you propose a better policy?
1. Mexico represents a small part of the world orange market.
a. Draw a diagram depicting the equilibrium in the Mexican orange market without international trade. Identify the equilibrium price, equilibrium quantity, consumer surplus, and producer surplus.
b. Suppose that the world orange price is below the Mexican price before trade and that the Mexican orange market is now opened to trade. Identify the new equilibrium price, quantity consumed, quantity produced domestically, and quantity imported. Also show the change in the surplus of domestic consumers and producers. Has total surplus increased or decreased?
2. The world price of wine is below the price that would prevail in Canada in the absence of trade. a. Assuming that Canadian imports of wine are a small part of total world wine production, draw a graph for the Canadian market for wine under free trade. Identify consumer surplus, producer surplus, and total surplus in an appropriate table.
b. Now suppose that an unusual shift of the
Gulf Stream leads to an unseasonably cold summer in Europe, destroying much of the grape harvest there. What effect does this shock have on the world price of wine? Using your graph and table from part (a), show the effect on consumer surplus, producer surplus, and total surplus in Canada. Who are the winners and losers? Is Canada as a whole better or worse off?
3. Suppose that Congress imposes a tariff on imported autos to protect the U.S. auto industry from foreign competition. Assuming that the United States is a price taker in the world auto market, show the following on a diagram: the change in the quantity of imports, the loss to U.S. consumers, the gain to U.S. manufacturers, government revenue, and the deadweight loss associated with the tariff. The loss to consumers can be decomposed into three pieces: a gain to domestic producers, revenue for the government, and a deadweight loss. Use your diagram to identify these three pieces. 4. When China‘s clothing industry expands, the increase in world supply lowers the world price of clothing.
a. Draw an appropriate diagram to analyze how this change in price affects consumer surplus, producer surplus, and total surplus in a nation that imports clothing, such as the United States.
b. Now draw an appropriate diagram to show how this change in price affects consumer surplus, producer surplus, and total surplus in a nation that exports clothing, such as the Dominican Republic.
c. Compare your answers to parts (a) and (b). What are the similarities and what are the differences? Which country should be concerned about the expansion of the Chinese textile industry? Which country should be applauding it? Explain. 5. Imagine that winemakers in the state of Washington petitioned the state government to tax wines imported from California. They argue