A low-income country decides to set a price ceiling on bread so they can make sure that bread is affordable to the poor. The conditions of demand and supply are given in the table below.
What are the equilibrium and equilibrium quantity before the price ceiling?
What will the excess demand or the shortage (that is, quantity demanded minus quantity supplied) be if the price ceiling is set at $2.40? $2.00? at $3.60?
Price Qd Qs
$1.60 9,000 5,000
$2.00 8,500 5,500
$2.40 8,000 6,400
$2.80 7,500 7,500
$3.20 7,000 9,000
$3.60 6,500 11,000
$4.00 6,000 15,000