Elmo finds himself at a Coke machine on a hot and dusty Sunday. The Coke machine requires exact change—two quarters and a dime. No other combination of coins will make anything come out of the machine.
No stores are open; no one is in sight. Elmo is so thirsty that the only thing he cares about is how many soft drinks he will be able to buy with the change in his pocket; the more he can buy, the better. While Elmo searches his pockets, your task is to draw some indifference curves that describe Elmo’s preferences about what he finds.
(a) If Elmo has 2 quarters and a dime in his pockets, he can buy 1 soft
drink. How many soft drinks can he buy if he has 4 quarters and 2 dimes?
(b) Use red ink to shade in the area on the graph consisting of all combinations of quarters and dimes that Elmo thinks are just indifferent to having 2 quarters and 1 dime. (Imagine that it is possible for Elmo to have fractions of quarters or of dimes, but, of course, they would be useless in the machine.) Now use blue ink to shade in the area consisting of all combinations that Elmo thinks are just indifferent to having 4 quarters and 2 dimes. Notice that Elmo has indifference “bands,” not indifference curves.
(c) Does Elmo have convex preferences between dimes and quarters?
(d Does Elmo always prefer more of both kinds of money to less?
(e)Does Elmo have a bliss point?