In: Economics
You live in a town with 300 adults and 200 children, and you are thinking about putting on a play to entertain your neighbors and make some money. A play has a fixed cost of $2,000, but selling an extra ticket has zero marginal cost. Here are the demand schedules for your two types of customers:
Price (Dollars) | Adults (Tickets) | Children (Tickets) |
20 | 0 | 0 |
18 | 25 | 0 |
16 | 50 | 0 |
14 | 100 | 0 |
12 | 150 | 0 |
10 | 200 | 0 |
8 | 300 | 25 |
6 | 300 | 50 |
4 | 300 | 100 |
2 | 300 | 150 |
0 | 300 | 200 |
To maximize profit, you would charge $____??? for an adult's ticket and $____??? for a child’s ticket. Total profit in this case would be $___???.
The city council passes a law prohibiting you from charging different prices to different customers.
Now you set a price of $____??? for all tickets, resulting in $___?? in profit.
Indicate whether each of the following groups of people is better off, worse off, or the same because of the law prohibiting price discrimination.
Group of People | Better Off | Worse Off | Unchanged |
Adults | |||
Children | |||
You, The Producer |
Suppose the fixed cost of the play were $2,600 rather than $2,000.
Complete the following sentences indicating how this would change your answers to the previous parts.
In the presence of price discrimination, the adult price of a ticket would INCREASE, REMAIN THE SAME, OR DECREASE?, and the child price would INCREASE, DECREASE, OR REMAIN THE SAME? . Total profit would RISE OR FALL? to $____?.
If price discrimination were banned and the monopolist continued to produce the play no matter what the profit, the price of a ticket would INCREASE, DECREASE, OR REMAIN THE SAME? , and total profit would RISE OR FALL? To $____?.