Consider an adult female who is a meat lover who really likes to eat meat. This
Question:
Consider an adult female who is a “meat” lover – who really likes to eat meat. This person would like to get all of their calories from meat if possible. However, this person finds it even
more important to get at least the minimum number of calories. In this case we will use 1,200 calories which some dieticians say is the minimum number of calories that an adult female
needs per day. The person also has the option to get calories from rice, and rice is typically cheaper than meat.
Therefore, in choosing how much rice and how much meat to buy, this person’s goals are:
Make sure that they are getting at least 1,200 calories
Conditional on getting at least 1,200 calories, getting as many of those calories as
possible from meat.
Prices are as follows:
The price of a calorie of rice is $0.01 / calorie
The price of a calorie from meat is $0.02 / calorie
(a) Suppose this person has total income of $12 to spend on food. How many calories will the person buy of rice, and how many calories will the person buy of meat?
(b) Now suppose that the price of meat stays the same, but the price of rice drops to be only $0.008/calorie. The person still has $12 of income. How many calories of rice will the person
buy, and how many calories of meat will this person buy?
(c) In this scenario, is rice a Giffen good? Explain your reasoning.
A Concise Introduction to Logic
ISBN: 978-1305958098
13th edition
Authors: Patrick J. Hurley, Lori Watson