Lead:

The so-called consumer equilibrium refers to the purchase of a certain number of various commodities under the limits of a given income and the price of various commodities in order to achieve the most satisfactory degree, which is called consumer equilibrium. Consumer equilibrium is at the heart of consumer behavior theory.

Lao Xu went to the mall to buy electrical appliances on the weekend, and only brought 5,000 yuan, so she thought about what electrical appliances she should buy. He bought a desk lamp, a socket, and two mobile phones for a total of 2,000 yuan, and he wanted to buy a computer. But he suddenly wanted to buy a computer for his son, but now he only has 3,000 yuan left, which is not enough to buy a computer, so Lao Xu returned a mobile phone. In this way, he had nearly 4,000 yuan left, and Lao Xu used the money to buy his son a laptop. In this way, the money ran out, and Lao Xu went home happily.

Many times, we are like Lao Xu to buy things in the market with limited money, but we can't determine which goods we should buy and which ones we should not buy at the same time, and how to match them so that we can buy the goods we need with limited money, so as to get the maximum satisfaction, just like Lao Xu in the example, which involves consumer equilibrium in economics.

The so-called consumer equilibrium refers to the purchase of a certain number of various commodities under the limits of a given income and the price of various commodities in order to achieve the most satisfactory degree, which is called consumer equilibrium. Consumer equilibrium is at the heart of consumer behavior theory.

There are three established assumptions for the achievement of consumer equilibrium:

1. Consumer preferences are established

This means that the consumer's evaluation of the utility of various goods is a given and does not change. That is to say, when consumers buy goods, the order of ordering is fixed due to the different degrees of need for various items. For example, if a consumer goes to the store to buy salt, batteries, and snacks, before going to the store, the order of the purchase of goods is salt, batteries, and snacks, and this order will not change after arriving at the store. That is to say, when spending the first yuan to buy goods, buying salt has the greatest marginal utility in the minds of consumers, followed by batteries, and dim sum comes last.

2. The consumer's income is established

Since money income is finite and money can buy everything, there is no diminishing marginal utility of money. Because of the limited income, there are many items that need to be purchased with money, but it is impossible to buy them all, so you can only buy the ones that you think are most important. Because the function of each dollar currency is the same, every extra dollar spent in the end when buying various goods should add the same level of satisfaction to themselves, otherwise consumers will abandon the purchase volume combination that does not meet this condition, and choose the purchase volume combination that they think is more suitable.

3. The price of the item is established

Since the price of goods is fixed, consumers need to consider how to allocate their limited income to the purchase and consumption of various goods in order to obtain maximum utility. Since incomes are fixed and the prices of goods are relatively constant, the maximum satisfaction that consumers can bring to the goods they can buy with a limited income is also measurable. Because the degree of satisfaction can be compared, the total utility of different combinations of purchases can be subjectively analyzed.

In the process of Lao Xu's consumption, the money she brought was certain, but she wanted to use limited money to buy all kinds of things she wanted, including computers, and at first she spent too much money on her mobile phone, so that she didn't have enough money to buy a computer, and in Lao Xu's consumption, the computer must be bought, so she had to return a mobile phone and redistribute the money to the computer.