Microeconomics Flashcards
Optimization
Everyone chooses their optimal alternative
Equilibrium
No Individual player has an incentive to change his actions in this scenario
Empiricism
Using Data to find answers to interesting questions
Ommited variables
An ommited variable is causaly related to a situation and must be taken into account
Reverse Causality
To Variables are Causalated but in the reverse order one expected
Positive Economics
Describes and Explains what actually happens in a market
Normative
Describes and explains how markets should really behave
Budget line
The budget line descsribes all posible consumption bundles that exhaust the consumers budget
Completeness principle
A consumer is never uncertain about what bundle of products he should buy (although he can be indifferent between bundles)
Monotinicity principle
Consumers preffer more products over less products of the same type
Convexity principle
Consumer preffer averages over extremes (A+B is better than 2A or 2B)
Utility function
The Utility function assigns a number to a consumption bundle that shows the consumers benefit of buying the bundle
Marginal utility (MU)
Gain in utility per unit (the partial derivative of utility with respect to the product)
Marginal rate of substitution (MRS)
The consumers willingness to replace consumption of product A through consumption of product B -(MU of A / MU of B)
Indifference curve
Curve of consumption bundles where consumers are indifferent between the bundles because they have the same utility, the slope od the inderence curve is the MRS
Price elasticity of demand
The percentage change in demand in relation to a 1% change in price (The slope of the demand function or the percentage change of demand divided by the percentage change in price)
Values of the Price elasticity of demand
- Between 0 and 1: Inelastic
- Higher than 1 Elastic
- Unit elastic
Income elasticity of demand
The responsiveness of demand of a product to a 1% change in income (percentage change in demand divided by percentage change in income)
Values of the Income elasticity of demand
- More than 0: Normal good->As income increases demand increases too
- Less than 0: Inferior Good-> As income increases demand decreases (bus rides)
Cross elasticity of demand
percentage change in demand for product a divided by percentage change in demand for product b
Values of the Cross elasticity of demand
> 0: Substitutes
0: Independend
<0: Complements
Characteristics of Perfectly competitive markets
- Fragmentation: Each player on the market is so small that he can´t influence the price
- Undiferentiadted/homogenous products: consumers persieve products identical regardless to who manufactured them
- Consumers have perfect information about competitors prices ->Transactions always occur at the market price
- Buyers and sellers are price takers
Profit under perfect competition
Each firm trys to maximize profits (pi)
Marginal revenue
Absolute change in revenue due to a change in quantity (derivative of the revenue function with respect to quantity)
Marginal cost
Absolute change in costs due to a change in quantity (derivative of the cost function with respect to quantity)
Profit maximization in perfect markets
pi(q)=R(q)-C(q) / the first derivative of pi=0 and the second deriavative is negative
Why do Marginal Cost increase?
- Scarce Factors: It is harder to increase efficiency close to the PPC
- High Demand drives up prices causing inefficient firms to enter the market, decreasing average MC
When do companys maximize profits in perfect markets?
When price=marginal cost and the SOC is negative
Production function
Shows the outputs a company can produce given input goods q(x1, x2)
Optimal input combination
The optimal constrainted or unconstrainted combination of inputs that results in the highest possible production level
Isocosts
Set of all possible production inputs for a firm that have the same cost
Shutdown condition
If profit - quasi fixed cost is less than 0 the firm would not produce
Consumer surplus
The monetary gain of consumers as they can puruchase goods at market price that is lower as some were willing to pay
Producer surplus
Monetary gain of producers as the equilibrium price is higher than the price they were willing to sell at