Managerial Economics 12th Edition by Mark Hirschey

Exercise 3

Indifference Curves. Suggest briefly whether each of the following statements about indifference curves that show preferences between goods and services is true or false and defend your answer.
A. Consumers prefer higher indifference curves that represent greater combinations of goods and services to lower indifference curves that represent smaller combinations of goods and services.
B. Indifference curves slope downward because if the quantity of one consumer product is reduced, the quantity of the other must also decrease to maintain the same degree of utility.
C. The slope of an indifference curve shows the rate at which consumers are willing to trade-off goods and services.
D. The fact that indifference curves do not intersect stems from the "more is better" principle.
E. In difference curves bend inward (are convex to the origin) because if goods are relatively abundant, the added value of another unit of goods will be small in relation to the added value of another unit of services.