Demand And Prices

Studying the consumer’s behavior by the ordinal approach of utility with the help of indifference curves allows us to deduce the two “movement laws of demand” in this chapter: the demand for a “normal” good is decreasing function of its price and an increasing function of income. We will use the elasticity concept to measure the intensity of the relation that is established between the demand, on the one hand, and prices or income, on the other hand: elasticity – price, direct and crossed, and elasticity – income. We can classify the goods in many categories, depending on the values that this elasticity takes. The demand elasticity can be determined depending on price and income. It reflects the proportion in which the demand for different products changes with the modification of the consumers’ income, the other factors remaining constant. The elasticity compared to the income is a demonstration of legality from the consumer’s sphere, which determines a certain hierarchy of the needs of each population category in a certain level of income. The movement of prices orients both the options and decisions of producers, namely the most useful productions and the most efficient investments, as well as the consumers’ options and decisions on the most advantageous buying of goods and services that they need. The prices appear as a “signal system” coordinating and making coherence the economic agents’ decisions – producers, consumers and population.