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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 ...
For example, if a consumer likes texting, but is neutral about the data package on his phone contract, then increasing the data allowance does not alter his utility. An indifference curve—constructed with data allowance on the Y axis and text allowance is on the X axis forms a vertical line. [2]
Figure 2: Income-consumption curve for normal goods. In the figure 2 to the left, B1, B2 and B3 are the different budget lines and I 1, I 2 and I 3 are the indifference curves that are available to the consumer. As shown earlier, as the income of the consumer rises, the budget line moves outwards parallel to itself.
An example indifference curve is shown below: Each indifference curve is a set of points, each representing a combination of quantities of two goods or services, all of which combinations the consumer is equally satisfied with. The further a curve is from the origin, the greater is the level of utility.
Whether indifference curves are primitive or derivable from utility functions; and; Whether indifference curves are convex. Assumptions are also made of a more technical nature, e.g. non-reversibility, saturation, etc. The pursuit of rigour is not always conducive to intelligibility. In this article indifference curves will be treated as primitive.
The indifference curves are straight lines (when there are two goods) or hyperplanes (when there are more goods). Each demand curve (demand as a function of price) is a step function : the consumer wants to buy zero units of a good whose utility/price ratio is below the maximum, and wants to buy as many units as possible of a good whose utility ...
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 ...
If an agent has monotone preferences which means the marginal rate of substitution of the agent's indifference curve is positive. Given two products X and Y. If the agent is strictly preferred to X, it can get the equivalent statement that X is weakly preferred to Y and Y is not weakly preferred to X.