With Some Services, E

question 75

Essay

With some services, e.g., checking accounts, phone service, or pay TV, a consumer is offered a choice of two or more payment plans. One can either pay a high entry fee and get a low price per unit of service or pay a low entry fee and a high price per unit of service. Suppose you have an income of $100. There are two plans. Plan A has an entry fee of $20 with a price of $2 per unit. Plan B has an entry fee of $40 with a price of $1 per unit for using the service. Let x be expenditure on other goods and y be consumption of the service.
a. Write down the budget equation that you would have after you paid the entry fee for each of the two plans.
b. If your utility function is xy, how much y would you choose in each case?
c. Which plan would you prefer? Explain.

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Definitions:

Expense Account

An account that tracks money spent on business operations, often categorized for budgeting and tax purposes.

Asset Account

An account that represents resources owned or controlled by a company from which future economic benefits are expected.

Liabilities

Financial obligations or debts that a company owes to others, which must be paid back in the future.

Personal Truck

A privately-owned motor vehicle, used for personal transportation rather than for business or commercial purposes.