Point elasticity is the price elasticity of demand at a specific point on the demand curve instead of
over a range of it. In economics, elasticity measures the percentage change of one economic variable
in response to a percentage change in another. point elasticity is thus the property where a change
in the price of a good or service will impact the product's demand. To get point PED we need to re-
write the basic formula to include an expression to represent the percentage, which is the change in
a value divided by the original value, as follows:
We can then invert the denominator, to get:
From the question:
∆𝑞 1
= −
∆𝑝 3.5
And when 𝑝 = 18; 𝑤𝑒 𝑔𝑒𝑡 18 = 60 − 3.5𝑞,
which gives 𝑞 = 12, 𝑏𝑦 𝑚𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛
1 18
point elasticity = − 3.5 × 12 = −0.43
NB: please take note demand is elastic if elasticity is greater than 1, and inelastic when less than
one, and unitary when elasticity ois exactly equal to one, save for perfectly elastic when
elasticity is infinity and perfectly inelastic when elasticity is zero.
, Given subsidy, the cost on suppliers decrease, such that the price paid by suppliers to supply will fall
by the amount of subsidy , hence the supply equation can be rewritten to be
𝑃𝑠 − 4
= (20 + 4𝑞) − 4
To get equilibrium, we equate demand to supply (with a subsidy). i.e., this is a point where the
quantity and the prices for which consumers and suppliers are willing to trade are the same. Hence
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