曼昆微观经济学习题.docx

1、曼昆微观经济学习题1. Describe some of the trade-offs faced by each ofthe following:a. a family deciding whether to buy a new carb. a member of Congress deciding how muchto spend on national parksc. a company president deciding whether toopen a new factoryd. a professor deciding how much to preparefor classe.

2、 a recent college graduate deciding whetherto go to graduate school2. You are trying to decide whether to take avacation. Most of the costs of the vacation (airfare,hotel, and forgone wages) are measured indollars, but the benefits of the vacation are psychological.How can you compare the benefitsto

3、 the costs?3. You were planning to spend Saturday workingat your part-time job, but a friend asks you togo skiing. What is the true cost of going skiing?Now suppose you had been planning to spendthe day studying at the library. What is the costof going skiing in this case? Explain.4. You win $100 in

4、 a basketball pool. You havea choice between spending the money now orputting it away for a year in a bank accountthat pays 5 percent interest. What is the opportunitycost of spending the $100 now?5. The company that you manage has invested$5 million in developing a new product, but thedevelopment i

5、s not quite finished. At a recentmeeting, your salespeople report that the introductionof competing products has reducedthe expected sales of your new product to$3 million. If it would cost $1 million to finishdevelopment and make the product, shouldyou go ahead and do so? What is the most thatyou s

6、hould pay to complete development?6. The Social Security system provides income forpeople over age 65. If a recipient of SocialSecurity decides to work and earn someincome, the amount he or she receives in SocialSecurity benefits is typically reduced.a. How does the provision of Social Securityaffec

7、t peoples incentive to save whileworking?b. How does the reduction in benefits associatedwith higher earnings affect peoplesincentive to work past age 65?7. A 1996 bill reforming the federal governmentsantipoverty programs limited many welfarerecipients to only two years of benefits.a. How does this

8、 change affect the incentivesfor working?b. How might this change represent a trade-offbetween equality and efficiency?8. Your roommate is a better cook than you are,but you can clean more quickly than yourroommate can. If your roommate did all thecooking and you did all the cleaning, wouldyour chor

9、es take you more or less time than ifyou divided each task evenly? Give a similarexample of how specialization and trade canmake two countries both better off.9. Explain whether each of the following governmentactivities is motivated by a concern aboutequality or a concern about efficiency. In theca

10、se of efficiency, discuss the type of marketfailure involved.a. regulating cable TV pricesb. providing some poor people with vouchersthat can be used to buy foodc. prohibiting smoking in public placesd. breaking up Standard Oil (which onceowned 90 percent of all oil refineries) intoseveral smaller c

11、ompaniese. imposing higher personal income tax rateson people with higher incomesf. instituting laws against driving whileintoxicated10. Discuss each of the following statements fromthe standpoints of equality and efficiency.a. “Everyone in society should be guaranteedthe best healthcare possible.”b

12、. “When workers are laid off, they should beable to collect unemployment benefits untilthey find a new job.”11. In what ways is your standard of living differentfrom that of your parents or grandparentswhen they were your age? Why have thesechanges occurred?12. Suppose Americans decide to save more

13、oftheir incomes. If banks lend this extra saving tobusinesses, which use the funds to build newfactories, how might this lead to faster growthin productivity? Who do you suppose benefitsfrom the higher productivity? Is society gettinga free lunch?13. In 2010, President Barack Obama and Congressenact

14、ed a healthcare reform bill in the UnitedStates. Two goals of the bill were to providemore Americans with health insurance (via subsidiesfor lower-income households financedby taxes on higher-income households) andto reduce the cost of healthcare (via variousreforms in how healthcare is provided).a.

15、 How do these goals relate to equality andefficiency?b. How might healthcare reform increase productivityin the United States?c. How might healthcare reform decrease productivityin the United States?14. During the Revolutionary War, the Americancolonies could not raise enough tax revenueto fully fun

16、d the war effort; to make up thisdifference, the colonies decided to print moremoney. Printing money to cover expendituresis sometimes referred to as an “inflation tax.”Who do you think is being “taxed” when moremoney is printed? Why?15. Imagine that you are a policymaker trying todecide whether to

17、reduce the rate of inflation.To make an intelligent decision, what wouldyou need to know about inflation, unemployment,and the trade-off between them?16. A policymaker is deciding how to finance theconstruction of a new airport. He can eitherpay for it by increasing citizens taxes or byprinting more

18、 money. What are some of theshort-run and long-run consequences of eachoption?1. Draw a circular-flow diagram. Identify theparts of the model that correspond to the flowof goods and services and the flow of dollarsfor each of the following activities.a. Selena pays a storekeeper $1 for a quart ofmil

19、k.b. Stuart earns $4.50 per hour working at a fastfoodrestaurant.c. Shanna spends $30 to get a haircut.d. Sally earns $10,000 from her 10 percentownershipof Acme Industrial.2. Imagine a society that produces military goodsand consumer goods, which well call “guns”and “butter.”a. Draw a production po

20、ssibilities frontier forguns and butter. Using the concept of opportunitycost, explain why it most likely has abowed-out shape.b. Show a point that is impossible for the economyto achieve. Show a point that is feasiblebut inefficient.c. Imagine that the society has two politicalparties, called the H

21、awks (who want astrong military) and the Doves (who want asmaller military). Show a point on your productionpossibilities frontier that the Hawksmight choose and a point the Doves mightchoose.d. Imagine that an aggressive neighboringcountry reduces the size of its military. As aresult, both the Hawk

22、s and the Doves reducetheir desired production of guns by the sameamount. Which party would get the bigger“peace dividend,” measured by the increasein butter production? Explain.3. The first principle of economics discussed inChapter 1 is that people face trade-offs. Usea production possibilities fr

23、ontier to illustratesocietys trade-off between two “goods”aclean environment and the quantity of industrialoutput. What do you suppose determinesthe shape and position of the frontier? Showwhat happens to the frontier if engineersdevelop a new way of producing electricitythat emits fewer pollutants.

24、4. An economy consists of three workers: Larry,Moe, and Curly. Each works ten hours a dayand can produce two services: mowing lawnsand washing cars. In an hour, Larry can eithermow one lawn or wash one car; Moe can eithermow one lawn or wash two cars; and Curlycan either mow two lawns or wash one ca

25、r.a. Calculate how much of each service is producedunder the following circumstances,which we label A, B, C, and D: All three spend all their time mowinglawns. (A) All three spend all their time washingcars. (B) All three spend half their time on eachactivity. (C) Larry spends half his time on each

26、activity,while Moe only washes cars and Curlyonly mows lawns. (D)b. Graph the production possibilities frontierfor this economy. Using your answers topart (a), identify points A, B, C, and D onyour graph.c. Explain why the production possibilitiesfrontier has the shape it does.d. Are any of the allo

27、cations calculated in part(a) inefficient? Explain.5. Classify the following topics as relating tomicroeconomics or macroeconomics.a. a familys decision about how much incometo saveb. the effect of government regulations on autoemissionsc. the impact of higher national saving on economicgrowthd. a f

28、irms decision about how many workersto hiree. the relationship between the inflation rateand changes in the quantity of money6. Classify each of the following statements aspositive or normative. Explain.a. Society faces a short-run trade-off betweeninflation and unemployment.b. A reduction in the ra

29、te of money growth willreduce the rate of inflation.c. The Federal Reserve should reduce the rateof money growth.d. Society ought to require welfare recipients tolook for jobs.e. Lower tax rates encourage more work andmore saving.7. If you were president, would you be moreinterested in your economic

30、 advisers positiveviews or their normative views? Why?1. Maria can read 20 pages of economics in anhour. She can also read 50 pages of sociology inan hour. She spends 5 hours per day studying.a. Draw Marias production possibilities frontierfor reading economics and sociology.b. What is Marias opport

31、unity cost of reading100 pages of sociology?2. American and Japanese workers can each produce4 cars a year. An American worker canproduce 10 tons of grain a year, whereas aJapanese worker can produce 5 tons of grain ayear. To keep things simple, assume that eachcountry has 100 million workers.a. For this situation, construct a table analogousto the table in Figure 1.b. Graph the production possibilities frontier ofthe American and Japanese economies.c. For the United States, what i