Class Notes
Definition (Parkin&Begg): Economics is the social science that studies the choices of
What to produce?
Services: insurance, hotels, transportation, education, retail and wholesale trade, etc.
How to produce?
resources, raw materials, water, air. Labor is the time and effort given by workers.
For whom to produce? Who will be able to buy goods and services? This depends
1.1 Scarcity:
Human beings have unlimited wants. We want the best cars, cell phones, houses,
education, vacations, etc. But we cannot obtain all of our wants because our
resources are limited. We need money and time to buy and enjoy these goods and
considers how prices and markets allocate scarce resources to unlimited wants of
the society.
classroom in primary schools. The government also wants to build a nuclear power
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plant. This will reduce Turkeys energy bill of 25 billion USD every year for natural gas
and oil to other countries. But the government does not have enough money to
realize both objectives (Govt. has a budget). Government has to choose between:
The fact that government has to choose where to spend its money is called a
tradeoff. Like government, all firms and individuals always face tradeoffs. They have
consumer, you cannot buy everything you want. For example, if your monthly income
is 1000 liras, and you have to pay 700 liras for rent and other bills, then you have 300
liras to decide what to buy. Let us say a nice cell phone is 300 liras and a textbook is
50 liras. Then you have to choose between the textbook and the cell phone. This is a
tradeoff. Here, the opportunity cost of one cell phone is equal to 6 textbooks.
Definition: (Parkin) The opportunity cost of an action is the value of the next-best
alternative action. When there are only two goods as in the example of cell phone
Example1: Let us say I have 1 TL in my pocket. I want to drink a cup of tea and eat 1
cookie. A cup of tea is 0.65 TL and 1 cookie is 1 TL. Can I buy both the tea and the
cookie with my 1 TL? No I can only buy either the tea or the cookie. The opportunity
cost of one cookie is the amount of tea that I have to forego, i.e. not buy. 1 cookie is
1 TL, which buys 1 / 0.65 (=1.54) cups of tea. So, opp. Cost of 1 cookie is 1/ 0.65
cups of tea.
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breakfast with friends. Assume that my best choice is to sleep, then to go jogging and
last choice is to have breakfast. Then the opp. Cost of sleeping is to go jogging. Opp.
Cost of jogging is to have breakfast. To illustrate Opp. Cost concept, let us introduce
economy like Labor, Land and Capital are fixed (scarce) at any given time.
Economists like to use models to illustrate ideas, so we use PPF to illustrate scarcity
and tradeoff.
CDs (millions)
A
15 B
55
512 C G
unattainable
9 D
Z E
5
attainable F
1 2 3 4 5
pizzas (millions)
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Idea: As we want to produce more pizzas, we must produce less CDs, because our
resources are limited (fixed). Attainable points are the points inside and on the curve.
They show points that this economy can produce. Unattainable points are points
beyond the PPF curve and these points cannot be produced. Points on the curve are
called efficient. This means all of the resources are spent on production. At a point
such as Z, some of the resources are not used efficiently, so we call such points
inefficient. At point Z, we can produce both more pizzas and more CDs. f we are on
point D and we want to increase CD production, the only way is to decrease pizza
Then the opportunity cost of 1 pizza is 3 CDs. One pizza costs us 3 CDs. To get 1
pizza, we give up 3 CDs. We come to point D. We can also calculate the opportunity
Increasing opportunity cost: Opp Cost of 1 pizza is not constant. From point D, if
we want to increase pizzas again by 1, then we have to give up 4 CDs and come to
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point E. Then the opportunity cost of 1 pizza becomes 4 CDs. Notice that opportunity
cost of 1 pizza increases as we produce more and more pizzas. Opportunity cost
increases because as we want to produce more pizzas, we force the resources that
are more specialized for CD production to pizza production. For example, workers at
SONY can produce many CDs easily because they are experienced in CD
production. If we move them to pizza production, they are not specialized in pizza
production so they will make a small amount of pizza. We get a small increase in
pizza production but a large decrease in CD production.
Does the PPF ever shift? Can the economy produce more of each good?
Economic growth takes place when the PPF shifts outward. This happens due to an
increase in factors of production (Land, labor, capital) or new developments in
technology. If factors of production and technology are constant, PPF is constant.
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we
expect our dinner, but from their regard to their self interest.
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776)
In a Free- Market Economy, buyers and sellers follow their own self interest.
Surprisingly, the resulting outcome is usually an efficient outcome. By following their
own self-interest, buyers and sellers help the economy become efficient. For
example, if people start to like pizzas more instead of lahmacun, then price of pizzas
would increase, a lot of lahmacun restaurants will switch to pizza production. Pizza
production increases because both consumers want to buy more pizza and
producers want to sell more pizza. Prices are a very important signal in this process.
To see how free markets are good for the economy; we can look at the Centrally
Planned Economies in the former Soviet Union, North Korea or Cuba. In a centrally
planned economy, everything (land, factories, restaurants) is owned by the
government and government has to decide what to produce and how much to
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produce each good and who will be able to buy the goods that are produced. This
planning is very complicated when you think of millions of goods and services to be
produced. If people start to like pizzas more in a centrally planned economy, then
they have to write letters to the government and ask for more pizza restaurants in
their town. It would be a very inefficient system. Prices do not signal and influence
buyer and seller behavior in a centrally planned economy.
In a free market economy, prices are very important signals that determine behavior
of buyers and sellers. What about the last global financial crisis that hit US, Europe
and Japan? What we are learning from this crisis is markets should not be
the government in the financial sector and the other sectors are necessary.
1- Why are people buying more DVDs and less movie tickets?
1- Gross Domestic Product: This is the total value of all goods and services
produced in a country in a year. GDP per capita shows the average income
of a person in a country.
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2- Consumer Price Index: Average price of all goods and services that a
3- Can the Central Bank of Turkey make everyone richer by printing money
2.1 Market
markets according to the good, for example market for milk or market for tobacco
or market for stock exchange IMKB. Markets can be defined narrow or wide: market
2.2 Demand
Demand is the total quantity of a good that buyers want to buy at every price during
TABLE 2
The law of demand: From Table 2, we can see that as the price goes up, buyers
want to buy less. This is the law of demand: Other things constant, the higher the
price of a good, the smaller is the quantity demanded; and the lower the price of a
price (liras/bar)
3.0
E
2.5
D
2.0
C
1.5
B
1.0 demand for energy
A bars
0.5
5 10 15 20 25 quantity demanded
(million bars)
FIGURE 2
Demand versus quantity demanded: The term demand refers to the entire
relationship between the price of a good and the quantity demanded at every price.
the quantity that consumers want to buy at a particular price. Quantity demanded is
Change in demand: If some other factor other than price changes the demand
behavior of consumers for a good, then the demand curve shifts. When demand
curve shifts, this means that quantity demanded changes at every price. Figure 3 and
price (liras/bar)
3.0
E
2.5 E
D
2.0 D
C C
1.5
B B
1.0
A A
0.5
5 10 15 20 25 32 quantity demanded
(million bars)
Movement along the demand curve: If all other factors are constant and only price
of the good changes, then we move along the original demand curve. For example,
starting with the original demand, if the price of chocolate increases from 1 lira to 2
liras, then quantity demanded decreases from 15 to 7. In this case demand curve
The following nonprice factors cause demand curve to shift. If price of the good
changes, demand curve does not shift, we move along the curve.
1- Prices of related goods: Consider the market for (gas) benzene. If the price
of LPG decreases, all other things constant, what happens to demand for
benzene? Demand for benzene decreases because people will buy cars that
operate with LPG instead of benzene. LPG and benzene are thus substitute
goods. A substitute is a good that can be used in place of another good (Ex: a
If the prices of cars decrease, what happens to demand for benzene? Demand for
complement is a good that is used together with another good (Ex: tea and
sugar).
2- Income: Usually when income increases, demand for most goods increases.
These are called Normal goods like cars, washing machines, etc. If the
demand for a good increases when incomes rise, this good is called a normal
good. Sometimes, when their income increases, people buy less bread, or
less bus tickets (they buy a car instead). Here bread and bus tickets are called
inferior goods. If the demand for a good decreases when incomes rise, this
increase next week on Monday, what would they do? They would go and fill
their tanks today. Demand for benzene today increases. Similarly, if everyone
starts to expect the price of laptops to decrease next month, then your
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demand for laptops today decreases. People wait to buy laptops at a cheaper
concerns. Similarly more spring water is sold today because most people do
not drink tap water today. 20 years ago many people drank tap water and
6- Season. Food demand increases during Ramadan, demand for airline travel
increases during summer. Demand for electricity and LPG increase in winter. These
2.3 Supply
Supply is the total quantity of a good that sellers want to sell at every price
during a given time period. Supply explains the behavior of sellers in a market.
Quantity supplied of a good or service is the amount that sellers want to sell at
a particular price during a given time period. Table 4 shows the supply of
chocolate.
price (liras/bar)
2.5
E
2.0
D
1.5
C
1.0 B
0.5 A
5 10 15 20 25 quantity
supplied(million bars)
FIGURE 4
Law of supply: Other things constant, the higher the price of a good, the greater is
the quantity supplied; and the lower the price of a good, the smaller is the quantity
supplied.
Change in supply: If one of the factors of supply other than price changes, then
every price.
price (liras/bar)
2.5
E new supply
2.0
D
1.5
C
1.0 B
0.5 A
5 10 15 20 25 30 quantity
supplied(million bars)
FIGURE 5
Determinants of supply: Factors other than price that influences supply of a good.
Increases supply.
3- Expected future prices: If the price of a good is expected to rise in the future,
then supply decreases today and increases in the future. For example, if the
food traders expect the price of olive oil to increase next month, then they
store more olive oil and sell a small amount now. Because they can make
was more than 1000 USD. Today you can buy the same AC for 500 USD. This
is because ten years ago only imported ACs were sold in Turkey. Today, many
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companies including Vestel and Arelik are producing and selling ACs. So
market. In a free market, price balances demand and supply and brings the market
to an equilibrium.
Equilibrium price is the price at which quantity supplied equals the quantity
demanded. Equilibrium quantity is the quantity bought and sold at the equilibrium
price.
Surplus Case
For example, if the current price of potatoes is 0.5 lira/kg, and if the quantity supplied
is 100 tons this week, and quantity demanded is 80 tons, then is this market at
tons of potatoes will be sold. When potato sellers cannot sell the remaining 20 tons,
they start to cut price. Also potato farmers decrease potato production. When sellers
cut prices below 0.5 lira, quantity demanded increases and surplus amount
decreases below 20 tons. This process goes on until surplus amount becomes zero.
quantity supplied.
Now, let us go back to the chocolates example. Table 6 and Figure 6 combines the
2.5 5 15 +10
TABLE 6
price (liras/bar)
2.5
2.0 Equilibrium
1.5
1.0
demand for energy
0.5 bars
5 10 15 20 25 quantity
supplied(million bars)
FIGURE 6
Shortage Case
Now let us assume that price of chocolate is 1 lira. At 1 lira, quantity demanded is 15
and quantity supplied is 6. This price is not an equilibrium price. So only 6 bars of
This means some buyers are willing to pay more than 1 lira for chocolate but there is
no chocolate to buy. Some chocolate sellers see this opportunity and start to increase
price and they can still sell it. So in case of a shortage, price increases to bring the
Summary
We have seen that when the market is not at equilibrium, price adjusts (decreases
or increases) to bring the market into equilibrium. When there is surplus, sellers will
cut prices to eliminate unsold stocks. When there is a shortage, then sellers will
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increase prices and some buyers are still willing to pay the higher price for chocolate.
These processes show that price coordinates the plans of buyers and sellers so that
An increase in demand:
See Figure 7 and Table 7. Starting from equilibrium position, let us assume that
demand for chocolate increases for some reason. Maybe because it is the
Valentines Day.
At the current price of 1.5 lira, there is a shortage of 10 m chocolate in the market.
This causes price to increase. When price increases, quantity demanded decreases
and quantity supplied increases. Price increases until the shortage becomes zero.
After some time, shortage is zero and the market is at equilibrium. New equilibrium
price is 2.5 liras per chocolate and new equilibrium quantity is 15 m bars.
price (liras/bar)
2.5
2.0
1.5
new demand
1.0
0.5
old demand
5 10 15 20 25 30 quantity
supplied(million bars)
FIGURE 7
Summary: When demand increases in the market, both market price and quantity
sold increases. So if demand decreases in the market, the opposite happens; market
An increase in supply
If food processing technology improves, then the supply of chocolate increases. See
price (liras/bar)
old supply
3.0
new supply
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
5 10 15 20 25 30 quantity
supplied(million bars)
FGURE 8
Since supply has increased, at the initial equilibrium price of 1.5 liras, there is a
surplus of chocolate. This causes the price to fall. As the price falls, qty demanded
increases and quantity supplied decreases. This causes the surplus to shrink. This
process stops at the new equilibrium price of 1.0 liras. At the new eqbm, 15 m bars
Summary: When supply of a good increases, its price decreases and its quantity
sold increases. Ex: In Turkey, supply of ACs have increased in the last five years. AC
prices have fallen a lot and qty of ACs sold have increased.
Conversely, if supply of a good decreases, then price increases and qty sold
decreases.
There are 6 combinations of supply and demand changes. As an exercise, try to see
Government intervenes into free markets in the form of price ceilings and price floors.
A price floor is a minimum price set and enacted by the government for a good or
service. It makes the sale of a good or service below a certain price illegal. The
Turkish govt. sets price floors for several food products. Some examples are
hazelnuts, tobacco, tea and wheat. Why does the govt. have such a policy? In
union or they are a politically important group, they have greater bargaining power
and force the government to policies that benefit its members. Figure 9 shows the
P
liras/kg
S
5 price floor
3 eqbm price
Q (kgs)
surplus amount
For example, assume that the eqbm price for hazelnuts is 3 liras. For a price floor to
have a real effect (be binding), it must be above the eqbm price. A price floor
below 3 liras would have no real effect on the market outcome. Let us assume that
after negotiations between the govt. and hazelnut producers confederation, the price
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shown on the Figure. What happens to the surplus amount of hazelnuts? How does
the govt. keep the price high and prevent the market from moving toward eqbm? By
buying the surplus amount. Sometimes the govt. is able to sell this amount, but most
of the time, sells it for a price a lot less than the price it has paid for it. This causes
the govt. institutions like Fiskobirlik to have deficits. Who pays for these losses? The
Another price floor in the labor market is the minimum wage. By the same reasoning
A price ceiling is a maximum price set and enacted by the government for a good or
service. It makes the sale of a good or service above a certain price illegal. Consider
the price ceiling for bread, 0.50 TL per loaf. Why does the government think a price
ceiling is necessary? Govt. wants to support poor consumers through this policy.
P
lira/loaf
price ceiling
0.5
Q (loaves)
shortage amount
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FIGURE 10
Assume the eqbm price of bread is 0.7 lira. A binding price ceiling must be below the
eqbm price. Otherwise it would have no effect on the market. The result of the price
ceiling is that there is a shortage of bread in the market. When there is a shortage
of a good, it must be rationed with some kind of mechanism. Which buyers will be
able to get the limited amount of bread? During the WWII years, bread was
distributed with a karne, a ration coupon that gives every person a right to one loaf
principle as it is the case today, then people have to wait in line to get bread. Also,
you cannot find the regular bread after 7pm in the evening. This is because the
bakeries do not want to sell the cheap bread; they bake only a limited quantity. They
bake other types like francala that there is no price restriction and so more
Rent ceiling: Good for the poor. Show the short term and long term effects by
drawing two supply curves. In the short term, supply curve is steep because it is
difficult for houseowners to respond to the policy quickly. In the long term, available
housing for rent may decrease as houseowners start to use their houses for other
controls.
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P (liras/
month)
SRS
LRS
rent ceiling
500
LR shortage Q (loaves)
SR shortage
FIGURE 11
Shortage of houses available for rent increases in the long term. We will have similar
results if the government decides to enact a law that restricts the rate of increase of
rents, like 5% per year. Normally rents increase faster than the rate of inflation in
Turkey. There will be a shortage of houses available for rent, at least in the long term.
changes in price and income. We are looking at the law of demand in more detail by
measuring elasticity. Law of demand says that as price of the good increases, qty
demanded decreases, but how much does it decrease? We did not consider the
magnitude of the price change on demand. Here we will quantify this effect formally.
changes in price. PED is defined as the percentage change in the quantity of a good
price (liras/ticket)
A
125
B
100
C
75
E
50
F
25
G
0
20 40 60 80 100 quantity demanded
(1000 tickets)
FIGURE 12
Example: Consider Table 9. This is the number of football game tickets for, say,
Galatasaray. Verify PED numbers in column four. Explain slowly how to calculate
y x *100
percentage changes. Percentage change of x y is calculated by .
x
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AB
Price change of 125 100 is a percentage change of (-25 / 125) * 100 = -20%.
DE
Demand is elastic if |PED| > 1. Demand is inelastic if |PED| < 1. Demand is unit
Galatasaray. Table 10 shows demand for tickets and total revenue. Your objective is
100 20 2000
75 40 -4 3000
62.5 50 - 1.5 3125
50 60 -1 3000
25 80 - 0.67 2000
0 100 -0.25 0
TABLE 10
Where should you pick the ticket price in order to maximize revenue? Assume initially
tickets are 100 TL. Should you decrease or increase ticket prices? If you increase
price to 125 TL, nobody will buy tickets and revenue is zero. If you decrease price to
75 liras, total revenue increases because the number of tickets sold increases faster
than the decrease in price. This means buyers are very sensitive to the price cut. |
PED| > 1 because: %change in qty demanded > %change in price. Notice that
1- When demand is elastic; |PED| > 1, the manager should decrease the
2- When demand is inelastic; |PED| < 1, the manager should increase the
Other Examples:
Agricultural products, crude oil and houses have inelastic demand. Tourism
expenditures, cars, furniture have elastic demand. Table 11 shows some real world
elasticities.
Sources: From M. Parkins Economics who compiled from: Ahsan Mansur and John Whalley,
Numerical Specification of Applied General Equilibrium Models: Estimation Calibration and Data, in
Applied General Equilibrium Analysis, eds. Herbert E. Scarf and John B. Shoven (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1984), 109, and Henri Theil, Ching-Fan Chung and James L. Seale, Jr.
Advances in Econometrics, Supplement I, 1989, International Evidence on Consumption patterns
(Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, Inc., 1989) and Geoffrey Heal, Columbia University, Web site.
because it is hard for consumers to substitute some other good for cigarettes.
Now consider a particular brand of cigarettes, say CAMEL. If the price of Camel
brand for Camel than to substitute ALL cigarettes. If we define a narrower market,
3- Time that has passed since Last Price Change: In the long-term, demand is
much more elastic than in the short-term. To illustrate the importance of the
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difference between short term and long term responses, let us consider the 1973
oil crisis.
supply to U.S. and Western Europe in response to 1- Western pressures for cheap
crude oil, 2- Their support for Israel. Figure 10 shows the short-term and long-term
effects of this.
A D
S
S
S
S D
D
S
S S
D S
0
quantity
100 demanded
(barrels) elastic demand(b)
inelastic demand(a)
In the short-term (1 year), price of crude oil had quadrupled by 1974. This is
because demand for oil is very inelastic in the short term, elasticity is around 0.05. As
shown on part (a) of Figure 13, the decrease in the supply of crude oil led to a large
increase in its price but a small decrease in qty of oil sold. This means that the
revenue of OPEC countries increased very sharply 1 year after the oil embargo.
But in the long-term as the time passed, consumers were better able to substitute
away from oil by buying smaller cars, use public transportation, and use alternative
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energy sources such as natural gas, nuclear power, wind and water. Use paper bags
instead of plastic bags, etc. Demand is much more elastic in the long-term than in the
short-term. So in the long-term, the demand curve is much flatter as in part (b) of
Figure 10. As a result, the same fall in the supply of oil produced a small price
increase but a large decrease in qty of oil sold in the long-term. Then the OPEC
revenues decreased a lot as time passed. The real price of crude oil decreased back
Another factor that contributed to the revenue decline was that oil production made
non-OPEC countries made the long-term supply of oil more elastic. OPEC revenues
decreased further. It was easier to keep prices high in the SR than in LR.
73-74 50
79 14
80 34
81 34
82 -10
83 -10
84 -10
85 -10
86 -45
Consider market for wheat. Wheat has an inelastic demand. Assume initially the
market is at eqbm. Now, suppose Fatih Uni. professors have found a two times
productive wheat seed. Also suppose that all farmers use this new seed and are
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farming two times the old amount. Supply curve will shift right. The new eqbm will be
at some point with a lower price and a higher qty. This is good for consumers
because they are able to buy wheat & bread cheaper. But is this good for wheat
for wheat is only 0.24. When price falls by for example, 20%, qty demanded will
increase by only 4.8%. Farmers will earn less money in total and on average as a
agriculture.
At this point, you may ask why do the farmers adopt the innovation and increase
supply?. They do because the decision facing each farmer is whether to increase
her crop taking PRICE of wheat AS GIVEN. The farmer does not take into account
the effect of her actions on the market price for wheat. Since all farmers face a similar
choice of action, they all decide to increase production. As a result they earn less
money. The inelastic demand for agricultural products explains two observations:
(i) every year, the percentage of labor force working in agriculture falls in
unplanted in order to keep supply low and prices high. Of course, this
policy hurts consumers and the society. It only benefits the farmers.
Consider demand for tomatoes, laptop computers and bus tickets. Which one do you
think has a larger income elasticity of demand? Consider the case when your income
rises from 1000 liras a month to 5000 liras a month. How much does your demand
for tomatoes increase? How much does your demand for a trip to Paris increase?
How about bus tickets? Luxury goods have an IED larger than one. Airline travel is
a luxury good. Necessity goods have an IED less than one. Tomatoes, tobacco,
Normal goods have a positive income elasticity of demand. Most goods are normal.
Inferior goods have a negative income elasticity of demand (IED). Bus tickets are
examples of inferior goods. Table 12 shows some real world income elasticities of
demand.
Clothing 0.51
Newspapers and Magazines 0.38
Telephone 0.32
Food 0.14
TABLE 12: REAL WORLD INCOME ELASTICITIES OF DEMAND
Source: From M. Parkins Economics who compiled from H.S. Houthakker and Lester T. Taylor,
Consumer Demand in the United States (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970) and
Henri Theil, Ching-Fan Chung and James L. Seale, Jr. Advances in Econometrics, Supplement I,
1989, International Evidence on Consumption patterns (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, Inc., 1989)
The Cross-price elasticity of demand for good i with respect to changes in the
Substitute goods have positive cross-price elasticity of demand. LPG and benzene
are substitute goods. When price of benzene goes up, quantity of LPG demanded
Cars and benzene are complement goods. When price of benzene goes up, all