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Q.Explain any four determinants of demand and express them in the form of demand function.

(OR)
What is meant by elasticity of demand ? Explain the degrees of price elasticity of demand.
Jammu Kashmir JkboseJKBOSE Class 12 Annual Regular Examination (Commerce) 2024Subjective· 6mImportance★★★★★
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The quantity demanded of a commodity is influenced by multiple determinants, and this relationship can be summarised compactly as a demand function.

Four important determinants of demand for a commodity X:

  1. Price of the commodity itself (Px) — demand is usually inversely related to its own price (law of demand): as Px rises, quantity demanded (Qdx) falls, ceteris paribus.
  2. Prices of related goods (Pr) — for substitute goods (e.g. tea and coffee), a rise in the price of the substitute raises demand for X; for complementary goods (e.g. car and petrol), a rise in the price of the complement reduces demand for X.
  3. Income of the consumer (Y) — for a normal good, demand rises as income rises; for an inferior good, demand falls as income rises.
  4. Tastes and preferences (T) — a favourable shift in tastes/preferences towards the commodity (due to advertising, fashion, habits) raises its demand, and vice versa. Combining these, the demand function can be expressed as: Qdx = f(Px, Pr, Y, T, ...) This states that the quantity demanded of X is a function of (depends on) its own price, prices of related goods, consumer income, and tastes/preferences, among other factors (expectations, population, etc.).

OR

Price elasticity of demand (Ed) measures how responsive quantity demanded is to a change in price; depending on the degree of this responsiveness, demand can be classified into five categories.

Price elasticity of demand is defined as: Ed = (Percentage change in quantity demanded) / (Percentage change in price).

The five degrees of price elasticity of demand are:

  1. Perfectly elastic demand (Ed = ∞) — even a negligible change in price causes an infinitely large change in quantity demanded; the demand curve is a horizontal straight line. …

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