[don'tTRIP.]

(Original post by cricket66)
the question asked how they attatch monetary values, not to discuss the effectiveness of cba. analyse, not discuss.

I should've done this question tbh. Everyone who did that question seemed to have only spoken about CBA/COBA. Surely you'd have to talk about shadow prices, compensation spending, congestion costs etc., no?

[cricket66]

(Original post by don'tTRIP.)
I should've done this question tbh. Everyone who did that question seemed to have only spoken about CBA/COBA. Surely you'd have to talk about shadow prices, compensation spending, congestion costs etc., no?

well yes, i think that's exactly what was meant to be discussed. it's come up before, and seems to be a classic at catching people out who rush straight in to talking about coba, cba, investment appraisal techniques etc.

[Redolent]

(Original post by blackstarz245)
for the fixed and variable costs, what did everyone write?
I said salaries for employees are fixed and fuel costs are variable

variable: air fuel
fixed: ..."administrative buildings"

[OnimushaGTA]

(Original post by don'tTRIP.)
I should've done this question tbh. Everyone who did that question seemed to have only spoken about CBA/COBA. Surely you'd have to talk about shadow prices, compensation spending, congestion costs etc., no?

Hmmm, yeah actually. Stupidly only COBA came to mind!

[ray_charlene]

(Original post by pkon9kai)
guys,does anyone want how to answer question 3(b), i am not quite sure what should be answered.

I talked about advantages and disadvantages of monopoly.
adv: price discrimination and dynamic efficiency
disadv: high price low output (can't think of a topic for it) and natural monopoly
THATS ALL I KNOW

[Jtn Star]

(Original post by pkon9kai)
guys,does anyone want how to answer question 3(b), i am not quite sure what should be answered.

Introduction:
- Define monopoly and transport
- Give an example of natural monopoly (rail)
- Diagram of monopoly

Arguments for:
- A perfectly competitive market does not exist
- Natural monopoly argument
- Dynamic efficiency
- Economies of scale leading to lower fare prices

Arguments Against:
- Both productively and allocatively inefficient
- Output is lower, price is higher
- Predatory pricing may be implemented by a monopolist in the short-term
- Higher fare prices for consumers - producer surplus is greater than consumer surplus
- Possibly diseconomies of scale if a transport operator is too big in scale

Judgements:
- Depends on whether it belongs to which sub-market in transport
- Depends on whether the market is regulated
- Depends on whether the provider always aims for profit maximisation

[OnimushaGTA]

(Original post by ray_charlene)
I talked about advantages and disadvantages of monopoly.
adv: price discrimination and dynamic efficiency
disadv: high price low output (can't think of a topic for it) and natural monopoly
THATS ALL I KNOW

This is exactly why I didn't do this question.
I went for question 2 instead, despite knowing f*ck all about COBA but at least I could answer 2b with lots and lots of depths

[pkon9kai]

i mentioned a few transport integration and contestability, would it worths any marks

[kingshan16]

It was a good exam for me. I did question 3 you really had to think about part B glab I interpreted question in a good way because it seems everyone else had just benefits and disadvantages which is wrong had to talk about it in terms of to producers and consumers.

Overall I think I got C and above for sure. Hopefully a B will do me nicely son. Lol messed up the one where you had to the five firm concentration you had to move it one decimal place i put 86% not 85.9%. I am a idiot. Rest was good for me. If you guys read your book EU open skies has actually worked nicely new routes, increase in passanger number, new entrants and pressure on national aireline to compete on price but it has been bad enviromentally i gave that as good about deregulation but bad as the bus market as local level.

[Hicky]

(Original post by Redolent)
variable: air fuel
fixed: ..."administrative buildings"

I put 'advertisement costs' as a kind of catch-all for fixed costs

[kingshan16]

Fixed cost those cost that do not vary with output eg capital costs and insurance
Variables cost those costs that do vary with output eg maintance costs and fuel.

Example to BA fixed cost put capital costs and variable I put fuel.

For the economics of scale one i put techincal and managerial to them, boom.

[Hicky]

Did any of you feel like you were making the same points for every question? I did and I'm not sure if it's a good/bad sign...

[Mani Katti]

Am I the only one who did 4? I eliminated 3 immediately (I don't think I know of anyone in my college thus far who picked 3 strangely...then again I'm certain our teacher said monopolistic competition wasn't on the syllabus, only to find it this morning ¬¬) because I can't do monopoly essays well and I realised that I just couldn't do 2)a because of the fact that I just couldn't think of anything other than COBA and CBA and didn't think that'd be enough for 15, despite how lovely 2)b was...I revised forecasting this morning as well so I felt alright about that.

Writing about derived demand for 15 marks is possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever done in my two years of economics :L. I did feel like I was repeating myself, but there's so little that you can talk about..."going to London via tube isn't demanded purely for the sake of a tube ride but because it facilitates other activities such as going to work and is therefore derived" then something about demanding air travel for going on holiday rather than the sake of flying, and then x2 for freight was basically how I answered that, although my teacher seems to think that I should have mentioned that if demand for transport mode x increases, then demand for y will increase accordingly, but that sounds to me like it's getting a bit into substitute/complimentary goods rather than derived demand?

As for the data response I might have invented my own bit of theory and a new graph to do with diseconomies of scale :L. It was a very strange data response, I had a feeling market concentration ratios and contestability would crop up so I had a quick glance this morning but even so I struggled with that question, it was a really bizzare definition (although compared to other units there's not a whole lot of small definitions they can give for transport).

Overall I'm not feeling confident with the paper, and I have a D in Global from January which I just have a feeling isn't going to improve drastically...yay for not going to uni D:.

[blackstarz245]

(Original post by Mani Katti)
Am I the only one who did 4? I eliminated 3 immediately (I don't think I know of anyone in my college thus far who picked 3 strangely...then again I'm certain our teacher said monopolistic competition wasn't on the syllabus, only to find it this morning ¬¬) because I can't do monopoly essays well and I realised that I just couldn't do 2)a because of the fact that I just couldn't think of anything other than COBA and CBA and didn't think that'd be enough for 15, despite how lovely 2)b was...I revised forecasting this morning as well so I felt alright about that.

Writing about derived demand for 15 marks is possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever done in my two years of economics :L. I did feel like I was repeating myself, but there's so little that you can talk about..."going to London via tube isn't demanded purely for the sake of a tube ride but because it facilitates other activities such as going to work and is therefore derived" then something about demanding air travel for going on holiday rather than the sake of flying, and then x2 for freight was basically how I answered that, although my teacher seems to think that I should have mentioned that if demand for transport mode x increases, then demand for y will increase accordingly, but that sounds to me like it's getting a bit into substitute/complimentary goods rather than derived demand?

As for the data response I might have invented my own bit of theory and a new graph to do with diseconomies of scale :L. It was a very strange data response, I had a feeling market concentration ratios and contestability would crop up so I had a quick glance this morning but even so I struggled with that question, it was a really bizzare definition (although compared to other units there's not a whole lot of small definitions they can give for transport).

Overall I'm not feeling confident with the paper, and I have a D in Global from January which I just have a feeling isn't going to improve drastically...yay for not going to uni D:.

Yh i was actually considering 4, but i felt i would have repeated myself so i did 2. I think I got full marks for the first page, my definition was 'the five firm concentration ratio is the five largest firms in the industry with the combined market share of a certain percentage.' for the second one, i got 85.9% and for the 2 mark market concentration, i said that if the two airlines merge, they will have a new market share of 20.1% This means that they will have the second largest market share in the airline industry after British Airways, who have 37.4%.
overall i think i got 22 for section A and 22/23 for section B

im worried about unit 4 though

[Redolent]

(Original post by kingshan16)
I did question 3 you really had to think about part B glab I interpreted question in a good way because it seems everyone else had just benefits and disadvantages which is wrong had to talk about it in terms of to producers and consumers.

I was aware of the consumer/producer wording of the question but still chose to write more generally about benefits/disadvantages of monopolies, because frankly, I have no idea what I would be meant to write about otherwise. "Monopolies are beneficial to producers because they are able to charge over their cost of production and make supernormal profit"? Seems a bit of a silly point. Starting to feel like I should have at least tried address it that way though. Ugh

(I kept dropping the word "consumers" in to show I was aware of the question, and I wrote that natural monopolies are beneficial system for both "consumers and producers"...hopefully that's enough)

[Jtn Star]

What is the answer to the concentration ratio question? I got 85.4 if not mistaken.

[justanotherposter]

(Original post by Jtn Star)
What is the answer to the concentration ratio question? I got 85.4 if not mistaken.

Can't remember the exact answer but you just add the top 5 companies' percentages together.

[Hicky]

I put 6:1 for the concentration ratio...

[blackstarz245]

(Original post by Hicky)
I put 6:1 for the concentration ratio...

It was 85.9%

[Jtn Star]

(Original post by Jtn Star)
Introduction:
- Define monopoly and transport
- Give an example of natural monopoly (rail)
- Diagram of monopoly

Arguments for:
- A perfectly competitive market does not exist
- Natural monopoly argument
- Dynamic efficiency
- Economies of scale leading to lower fare prices

Arguments Against:
- Both productively and allocatively inefficient
- Output is lower, price is higher
- Predatory pricing may be implemented by a monopolist in the short-term
- Higher fare prices for consumers - producer surplus is greater than consumer surplus
- Possibly diseconomies of scale if a transport operator is too big in scale

Judgements:
- Depends on whether it belongs to which sub-market in transport
- Depends on whether the market is regulated
- Depends on whether the provider always aims for profit maximisation

How are my points?