IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/amerec/v62y2017i2p258-267.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Elasticity as Relative Slopes: A Graphical Approach to Linking the Concepts of Elasticity and Slope

Author

Listed:
  • Xudong Chen

Abstract

Price elasticity and the slope of a demand or supply curve are closely related concepts that address the relationship between a price change and the resulting quantity change. At times, however, the link between these two concepts can appear to be counterintuitive, presenting potential pedagogical challenge. We propose a graphical approach by expressing the elasticity as relative slopes, and perform a comprehensive examination of how price elasticity varies along a demand or supply curve, both in linear and nonlinear cases. We suggest that this less well-known technique provides a viable alternative to facilitate better understanding of the seemingly elusive link between elasticity and slope.

Suggested Citation

  • Xudong Chen, 2017. "Elasticity as Relative Slopes: A Graphical Approach to Linking the Concepts of Elasticity and Slope," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 62(2), pages 258-267, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:62:y:2017:i:2:p:258-267
    DOI: 10.1177/0569434516682713
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0569434516682713
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0569434516682713?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    price elasticity of demand and supply; slope; relative slopes; demand curve; supply curve;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A22 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics - - - Undergraduate
    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:62:y:2017:i:2:p:258-267. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/aex .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.