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This article is very simple. It talks about books and how author can change elasticity of the book by using different ways of writing books. There is one interesting example of the change in price and its consequences. So the author of the book decided to make an experiment and increse the price for the book from 0.99$ to 2.99$ (302% change in price). Usually we would expect demand to go down, but in this case demand for the book rised from 9 to 17 (189% change in demand). So 189/302 = 0.62, shows that demand is inelastic, what makes more sense. This article shows us that elasticity of demand depends on a lot of different factors.

Royal Mail has recently spiked their prices. This has resulted in a large decrease in number of stamps bought. A fall of 9% of mails have been sent with Royal Mail. They are certainly testing the elasticity of demand curve, but are they just putting themselves out of business? This article relates perfectly to price elasticity because this company, Royal Mail, is testing the elasticity of the market. They are taking a big risk, because if the elasticity is high, they may go right out of business. There are many free substitutes for sending mail, like E-Mail, Texting, and Social Networking. In my opinion, I think it is quite bizarre of Royal Mail to spike their price knowing that their demand has gone down. It will be interesting to see if they lower the prices again!

Scottish Power has announced a price rise in the gas and electricity bills by 7%. The firm has 2.3 million customers and the average yearly bill will increase to £1,271. The rise is said to be caused by an increase in costs for transporting gas and electricity. Other energy firms have also raised prices. The demand for the product, electricity and gas, is definitely inelastic in this case, since electricity and gas are necessities for the people. People will still need electricity regardless of how much price has increased. Demand will remain the same. All the energy firms are also raising costs, so the consumers have no substitutes. They have to endure to higher bills to come.

Apple, in the past, has been notorious for setting high prices for its products. Its beautiful, expensive products were, however, sought after by many, yet with it's new product, the iPad mini, Apple is starting to make products that are not only highly-desirable, but at the same time, less-expensive. Apple products are price elastic because it is not a necessity and there are a myriad of substitutes. Apple is well aware of this information, and as a result, is lowering its prices to take advantage of price elasticity and the law of demand. As the title states, "Its all about price elasticity" and the iPad mini, with its reduced price will be competitive in the tablet market.

Benjamin Diokno of Malaya Business Insight believes that taxes on cigarettes, liquor, gambling, and oil should be taxed much more heavily. He believes they should account for one third of all taxes. Price elasticity is about 0.6 for cigarettes and about 0.23 for liquor. I do not agree with Benjamin on this one. Firstly, because I do not believe that drinking or smoking is a sin. Some people have lots of pain and trouble in this world and maybe drinking is the only way for them to experience peace. And what if someone has just come off drugs, so instead uses cigarettes instead of Cocaine. Would you still think its a sin to smoke cigarettes? These should be taxed just as equally as other products. Im interested on your views. Comment and let me know !

The article is written about a survey that was consucted in Australia to study the elasticity of food items. 15 food groups were surveyed and compared to each other. Milk, bread, fresh fruit and vegeatbles were seen as the most inelastic. Even when prices were increased people bought these items and could absorb the price increase easily. Normally sales would have increased with a drop in prices and decreased with a hike in prices but not in these cases. This clearly shows what we studied this week about how essential products are inelastic. The article also discusses how Aussies in comparison with the American and Canadian are more likely to give up meat in case of a price increase.

This article clearly shows the way price and taxes changes the demand on tobacco. It gives us a good description of that products. So after that article we can conclude that tobacco is not that price sensitive. And attempts of the government to reduce the number of consumers by increasing taxes did not really work. The conclusion of the article makes it really clear and easy to understand: "From the above discussion it is evident that the price of elasticity of value is an important measure of the changes that will occur when a tax is imposed on tobacco products, this value is important in that it can help in determining the appropriate tax value that should be imposed in order to reduce tobacco consumption. Taxes on the other hand should be fair and depending on the price elasticity value of tobacco products certain groups in the economy may be unfairly taxed whereby poor individuals in the economy may have a greater tax burden than higher income individuals."

Earlier this week the U.S. Department of Energy announced that the average national price for regular gasoline in the U.S. was now $3.96 a gallon. Last week the Kremlin banned gasoline and diesel exports from Russia to alleviate domestic shortages sending gasoline prices in Germany to a record $9.10 a gallon. Although price increases, people are still going to buy it due to it's elasticity, which is so small. The reason is gasoline is definitely a necesity.

According to this articles, which indicates pretty clearly what is Price mechanism. The author shows the facts of petrol price: How it relates to economics and has the influence by the systems; and also shows why petroleum differ from other products.