北大光华微观经济学作业 Problem Set-5.pdf

Intermediate Microeconomics Fall 2008 Problem Set 5 1. In the Edgeworth box diagram, explain (a) how one point can simultaneously represent the market baskets owned by two consumers, and (b) why both consumers’ marginal rates of substitution are equal at every point on the contract curve. 2. There are three groups in a community. Their demand curves for public television in hours of programming, T, are given respectively by W =$150-T, W =$200-2T, and W =$250-T. 1 2 3 Suppose public television is a pure public good that can be produced at a constant marginal cost of $200 per hour. a) What is the efficient number of hours of public television? b) How much public television would a competitive private market provide? 3. A beekeeper lives adjacent to an apple orchard. The orchard owner benefits from the bees because each hive pollinates about one acre of apple trees. The orchard owners pays nothing for this service, however, because the bees come to orchard without his having to do anything. There are not enough bees to pollinate the entire orchard, and the orchard owner must complete the pollination by artificial means, at a cost of $10 per acre of apple trees. Beekeeping has a marginal cost MC=10+2Q, where Q is the number of beehives. Each hive yields $20 worth of honey. a) How many beehives will the beekeepers maintain? b) Is this the economically efficient number of hives? c) What changes would lead to the more efficient operation? 4 ． A competitive refining industry produces one unit of waste for each unit of refined product. The industry disposes of the waste by releasing it into