In: Economics
Suppose Joe has utility U = min(C/60, L) i.e. Joe must have $60 and an hour of leisure to get one util.. By extension $30 and 30 minutes of leisure gives him 0.5 utils and $120 and 2 hours of leisure gives him 2 utils. Further, assume that Joe can make $20/hour at his job and has absolutely no savings. Lastly… assume Joe must sleep 8 hours a day (which counts as neither work nor leisure), but can work and/or leisure up to the remaining 16 hours (with fractional hours of work / leisure allowed as well). Joe is trying to figure out how to spend his day.
(a) The budget constraint would be , for N be the labor hours, and hence N+L=16, and hence, the budget would be or or . The graph is as below (note that the graph is scaled to look clean).
(b) The two indifference curve would have the equation and .
(c) The corner of the indifference would be at where , which would be the utility maximizing combination, irrespective of price of C and L. Putting it in the budget constraint, we have or or or , and since , we have . These are the utility maximizing combination of affordable C and L. The graph is as below.