22. How does elasticity affect the burden of a tax? Justify your answer using supply-demand diagrams.

When a tax is imposed on a market with these elasticities, the price received by sellers does not fall much, so sellers bear only a small burden. By contrast, the price paid by buyers rises substantially, indicating that buyers bear most of the burden of the tax. In this case, sellers are not very responsive to changes in the price (so the supply curve is steeper), whereas buyers are very responsive (so the demand curve is flatter). The figure shows that when a tax is imposed, the price paid by buyers does not rise much, but the price received by sellers falls substantially. Thus, sellers bear most of the burden of the tax. The two panels of Figure 9 show a general lesson about how the burden of a tax is divided: A tax burden falls more heavily on the side of the market that is less elastic. Why is this true? In essence, the elasticity measures the willingness of buyers or sellers to leave the market when conditions become unfavorable. A small elasticity of demand means that buyers do not have good alternatives to consuming this particular good. A small elasticity of supply means that sellers do not have good alternatives to producing this particular good. When the good is taxed, the side of the market with fewer good alternatives is less willing to leave the market and must, therefore, bear more of the burden of the tax. We can apply this logic to the payroll tax discussed in the previous case study. Most labor economists believe that the supply of labor is much less elastic than the demand. This means that workers, rather than firms, bear most of the burden of the payroll tax. In other words, the distribution of the tax burden is not at all close to the fifty-fifty split that lawmakers intended.

23. Explain how to define and measure consumer surplus.

DEFINITION of 'Consumer Surplus'

An economic measure of consumer satisfaction, which is calculated by analyzing the difference between what consumers are willing to pay for a good or service relative to its market price. A consumer surplus occurs when the consumer is willing to pay more for a given product than the current market price.

Consumers always like to feel like they are getting a good deal on the goods and services they buy and consumer surplus is simply an economic measure of this satisfaction. For example, assume a consumer goes out shopping for a CD player and he or she is willing to spend $250. When this individual finds that the player is on sale for $150, economists would say that this person has a consumer surplus of $100.

24. Explain how to define and measure producer surplus.

Producer surplus measures the benefit to sellers of participating in a market. It is measured as the amount a seller is paid minus the cost of production. For an individual sale, producer surplus is measured as the difference between the market price and the cost of production, as shown on the supply curve. For the market, total producer surplus is measured as the area above the supply curve and below the market price, between the origin and the quantity sold