| P 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Q s 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 Q D 550 500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 Now imagine that there is a price ceiling on coconuts at $3 but in order to prevent wasting peoples’ time by making them wait in line, the government hands out ration coupons to people. In order to buy a coconut you need a coupon. Assume that the number of coupons is the appropriate number to clear the market with the price ceiling (you should know what that is). Now notice that the government probably doesn’t know who has the highest marginal value for coconuts so, while this will eliminate the waste from the line it will most likely not allocate the coconuts efficiently. However, we can solve this problem by allowing people to trade the coupons! So imagine that there is such a market and it is perfectly competitive. a. What will the price of a coupon be in this market? b. Draw the price ceiling graph and identify the consumer and producer surplus, and the dead weight loss. There should be an area in there which would have been the cost of the line had there been a line. Label this area “A.” Who gets this surplus now? |
