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An example of how indifference curves are obtained as the level curves of a utility function. A graph of indifference curves for several utility levels of an individual consumer is called an indifference map. Points yielding different utility levels are each associated with distinct indifference curves and these indifference curves on the ...
Under the standard assumption of neoclassical economics that goods and services are continuously divisible, the marginal rates of substitution will be the same regardless of the direction of exchange, and will correspond to the slope of an indifference curve (more precisely, to the slope multiplied by −1) passing through the consumption bundle in question, at that point: mathematically, it ...
An example is shown in Fig. 6, where the purple line is the Pareto set corresponding to the indifference curves for the two consumers. The vocabulary used to describe different objects which are part of the Edgeworth box diverges.
The model can be used to describe any community, such as a town or an entire nation. In a community indifference curve, the indifference curves of all those individuals are aggregated and held at an equal and constant level of utility .
An indifference curve can be detected in a market when the economics of scope is not overly diverse, or the goods and services are part of a perfect market. Any bundles on the same indifference curve have the same utility level. One example of this is deodorant. Deodorant is similarly priced throughout several different brands.
In 1915, Eugen Slutsky derived a theory of consumer choice solely from properties of indifference curves. [72] Because of the World War , the Bolshevik Revolution , and his own subsequent loss of interest, Slutsky's work drew almost no notice, but similar work in 1934 by John Richard Hicks and R. G. D. Allen [ 73 ] derived largely the same ...
The substitution effect is the change that would occur if the consumer were required to remain on the original indifference curve; this is the move from A to B. The income effect is the simultaneous move from B to C that occurs because the lower price of one good in fact allows movement to a higher indifference curve.
In a model where competitive consumers optimize homothetic utility functions subject to a budget constraint, the ratios of goods demanded by consumers will depend only on relative prices, not on income or scale. This translates to a linear expansion path in income: the slope of indifference curves is constant along rays beginning at the origin.