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Food Prices

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Submitted By meagelizk
Words 648
Pages 3
Microeconomics
July 4, 2011
Analysis Paper
Food Prices Increase Most in 36 Years

There are many different reasons for the price of food to fluctuate up and down. For some people when price of food goes up, they buy less of it, which is known as a normal good. On the other hand, some people find certain foods a necessity to their diet that it does not matter the price of the good, they just buy it anyways. In this case, food runs as a necessity. Recently, wholesale prices have jumped by the most it has seen in nearly two years due to high energy cost and the steepest rise in food prices. Wholesale prices are prices that are usually about half the price of something that could be purchased in retail value. The price of food has soared 3.9 percent last month, causing the biggest gain since November 1974. This increase in food was due to a rise in vegetable cost, which increased by 50 percent. Along with this increase, meat and dairy products also rose. To figure out how the price of food rose, we look at the supply and demand curve of food and other things that could have caused this. Food is known as a necessity because people will always buy it. When taking a look at the demand side of food, the demand curve for food would be perfectly inelastic because no matter what the price of food is people will always buy some type of food; compared to someone buying an ipod, which we would consider a luxury good. In the article, it does not say whether the price of food will cause the demand to go up, down or stay the same. What we do know is that things that could have caused the price of food to rise is the demand for oil from fast growing countries, which is causing prices to be even higher. Gasoline cost increased by 3.7 percent but since Japan had the devastated earthquake, economist expect Japan to lower oil prices. This on the other hand, should anger

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