In what sense is the notion of “social surplus” an appropriate or inappropriate measure of overall human well-being? You may, for instance, provide an example for which it is a good measure and an example for which it is a bad one, and argue why that is.
Social surplus is the sum of consumer surplus and producer surplus. A two-sector model comprises of consumers and producers only. Consumer surplus is the difference between maximum willingness to pay of a consumer and its actual price while producer surplus is the difference between minimum willingness to accept of a producer and its actual price.
The only problem with this measure is in the presence of positive and negative externality when goods are underproduced and overproduced respectively.
For eg, in case of positive externality, social surplus is much higher while in negative externality it is lower.
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