Problem: Both person A and person B are purchasing bananas and apples from the same supermarket, where the price of a banana is $2 and the price of an apple is $1. Person A is currently consuming 2 apples and 15 bananas, while person B consumes 30 apples and 3 bananas.
a) How many apples do we have to give each individual in return for taking away one banana to keep the person at the same utility? (Assume that changes in consumption are small enough so they do not alter marginal utilities)
b) How should a study value marginal tradeoffs between goods that are exchanged in a market economy? Is it appropriate to use one rate even though people might have very different preferences?
Problem: For each of the following social choice methods, which of Arrow's axioms
a) the Pareto criterion
b) plurality-rule voting (of several choices, the one with the most votes wins)
c) majority voting
d) pulling a choice out of a hat (random)