Social Sciences

I'll provide an explanation of the supply and demand curve for questions 1 through 5, which should help with any graphing on these and other questions.

1. As we become more technologically advanced, products like laptop computers become faster and more powerful, while the pervasiveness of the technology also drives down the price. As it becomes less rare and more commonplace, it also becomes cheaper. If prices of laptops are falling, it's because our capacity to produce this pervasive new technology is outpacing consumer demand. It remains cheap because it's plentiful and accessible.

2. If cranberry production increases by 56% year over year and yet the supplier is still able to increase the price per barrel by nearly 14%, it is because the increasing supply of the product is still unable to meet the demand by consumers. For instance, even if supply is up 56%, cranberries will still be less plentiful and harder to get on the open market if demand is up by 87%, meaning there is more consumer competition for the fruit.

3. Government controls on products artificially keeps the price of products below market value, either by undervaluing the contributions of the growers and manufacturers (such as the government paying non-liveable wages) or by shifting the cost burden onto the government in the form of debt through subsidization. By lifting arbitrary government price controls, the price of bread rises to equilibrium as sellers are able to set prices based on their level productivity (which can either meet demand or not) and what consumers will pay for it. The lifting of price controls presumes demand stayed constant and that suppliers were able to charge a fair value for their product based on demand.

4. If the United States did not import steel, only US manufacturers would be selling steel to US buyers. The number of buyers would remain constant, but they would have less options, making steel more competitive. The reduced supply would make the product more valuable (i.e., more in demand), thereby driving up the cost. This curve would reverse if the world markets were allowed to import steel to the United States, as buyers would have more supply options, thereby forcing US steel companies to drop their prices in order to compete.

5. Price supports for tobacco are a subsidy used to help offset the restrictions on land use for tobacco growers. When manufacturers are subsidized, prices can be lowered to accommodate the consumer base. However, less land to grow tobacco on makes tobacco scarcer, which reduces supply and drives up costs. In this way, the policies offset. If the product remains above equilibrium, it suggests the subsidies are not enough to offset the increasing costs generated by the limited land that has been authorized for growing. Whether the government is aiming to reduce tobacco use is debatable, since it profits largely on tax revenues from tobacco sales, but an argument could be made that subsidizing the industry supports its continuation, while limiting land to support its growth would aim to reduce it.

On this site, we cannot simply do entire homework assignments.  Instead, I will help you through the first three examples that you have posted.

In the first example, prices have fallen even though the demand for the laptops has gone up.  The only way that this could happen is if the supply rose enough to offset the increase in demand.  An increase in demand causes prices to rise, but an increase in supply causes them to fall.  If supply increased enough (for example, if manufacturers found ways to reduce their labor costs by a large amount), you could have a decline in price even as demand increases.

Now for the second example.  Here, we have an increase in supply accompanied by an increase in the price even though increases in supply are supposed to cause the price to drop.  This could happen if demand for the cranberries increased to offset the increase in supply.  Perhaps cranberries became more popular and people therefore demanded more of them.

Finally, we will look at the third example.  In order to show the market for bread before reforms, draw intersecting supply and demand curves.  Then draw a horizontal line below the equilibrium.  This represents the price ceiling for bread.  You will see that the line intersects the supply curve at a much lower quantity the point where it intersects the demand curve.  This means the quantity demanded for bread at this price is much higher than the quantity supplied.  When deregulation occurred, the price rose to the equilibrium.  You will see that this resulted in an increase in quantity supplied and a decrease in quantity demanded.