Compare market price and quantity of steel to socially optimal price and quantity if steel producers ignore soot emitted from their smokestacks. Use a graph to assist your explanation

What will be an ideal response?


The market results in too low a price and too large a quantity of steel. If soot were included as a cost, supply would shift up (to the left) and price would increase, along with a decrease in quantity. This may be illustrated as in Figure 17-1.


Figure 17-1




Economics

You might also like to view...

Which of the following statements is true of perfect competition?

A) The outcome in a perfectly competitive market is Pareto inefficient. B) The total value of production across a perfectly competitive industry is maximized. C) Firms under perfect competition produce at a point where price is greater than marginal cost. D) Consumers in a competitive market purchase at a point where marginal utility is greater than price.

Economics

Which of the following factors help to explain the sustained increases in health care spending in the United States, and which do not?

a. the additional paperwork, duplication, and waste generated in the U.S. health care system compared to systems in other countries b. the increasing costs of malpractice insurance and malpractice lawsuit settlements c. the number of uninsured patients receiving hospital treatment that could have been performed at a lower cost in doctors' offices d. the slow growth in labor productivity in health care compared to that in the economy as a whole e. the aging population f. increases in the cost of providing health care

Economics

For a given pair of production outputs, the degree of economies of scope:

A) is constant across different output levels. B) only increases as the level of output increases. C) may increase or decrease with output. D) will always tend to zero as output becomes very large.

Economics

Externalities between two firms can be "internalized" if: I. The two firms merge. II. Bargaining costs are zero. III. The externalities affect each firm equally. IV. Marginal costs for both firms are constant. Which statement(s) correctly complete(s) the sentence?

a. Only II. b. All except III. c. I and II, but not III and IV. d. I and IV, but not II and III

Economics