Question

. Suppose you own a bookstore. You believe that you can sell 40 copies per day of the latest John Grisham novel when the price is $35. You consider lowering the price to $25 and believe this will increase the quantity sold to 50 books per day. Compute the price elasticity of demand using the mid-point formula and these data. Select the correct implication from your work.

Answer 1

Answer:

PED = 0.67 inelastic demand

you should not lower the price of the book

Explanation:

the midpoint formula for calculating price elasticity of demand = {(Q2 - Q1) / [(Q2 + Q1) / 2]} /  {(P2 - P1) / [(P2 + P1) / 2]}

PED = {(50 - 40) / [(50 + 40) / 2]} /  {(25 - 35) / [(25 + 35) / 2]} = [10 / (90 / 2)] /  [-10 / (60 / 2)] = (10 / 45) / (-10 / 30) = 0.222 / -0.333 = 0.67

the PED = 0.67 which means that the demand is inelastic

if you lower the price of the book, the increase in number of books sold will be proportionally lower than decrease in price, so you will lose money by doing that.