Thursday, 24 October 2013

Elasticity



The elasticity concept clarifies the responsiveness of one variable to changes in another. The price of the OldTown White Coffee's coffee mix is elastic. This means that consumers are sensitive to the price changes of the coffee mix.
Graph 7: Elastic demand curve (Econhelp, 2010)
According to Graph 7, it is obvious that the change in quantity demanded is greater than the changes in price. This is because there are highly substitutable coffee mix in the market. Since consumers can easily switch their purchases to substitutes when the price of coffee mix changes, so consumers will tend to buy competitor’s coffee mix instead of OldTown White Coffee whenever it increases the price.
Assuming that graph 7 shows the changes in price and changes in quantity demanded of OldTown White Coffee’s coffee mix.
The price elasticity of demand of coffee mix is shown below :
Price Elasticity of Demand = %ΔQD / %ΔP


Price Elasticity of Demand = (60/60) / (3/9.5)


Price Elasticity of Demand = 1/0.3158


Price Elasticity of Demand = 3.1666
The result shows that the price of coffee mix is elastic as the price elasticity of demand is greater than 1 but less than infinity. This means that the percentage decreases in the quantity demanded exceeds the percentage increase in price.

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