Conditions for Demand Curves Whose Curves of Total Revenue, Consumers' Surplus, Total Benefit, and Compromise Benefit are Convex
IT IS IMPORTANT for problems of storage and of price discrimination to know whether the total-revenue curve is convex or concave. I shall try to state the conditions for the demand curves under which the totalrevenue curve is convex or concave. Let D be the quantity. is the demand curve and the total-revenue curve. The total-revenue curve is convex if d2[DF(D)] /dD2 0. In the first case, d2[DF(D) ]/dD2 O, or DF(D) -2F'(D). If the total-revenue curve is a straight line, DF(D) =2F'(D), and by solving this differential equation we get = a/D + b, where a and b are constants (a>O). These are Marshall's constant-outlay curves, a/D, shifted up or down by any constant quantity b (Figure 2). If the case of a straight-line total-revenue curve, = a+bD, we have F'(D) = -a/D2 (Figures 1, 2), F(D) =2a/D3 (Figure 1), and DF(D) = 2a/D2 (Figure 1). In Figure 2 some demand curves and their marginal curves for straight-line total-revenue curves are represented. If the marginal curve, F'(D) =I'(D), of a given demand curve, = I(D), cuts one of the curves F'(D) =-a/D2 from above at a point P', then its slope at this point is smaller than the slope of the curve F'(D) =-a/D2. Since the slope of the curve F'(D) =I'(D) is F(D) =I(D) and the slope of the curve F'(D) = a/D2 is F(D) = 2a/D3, the relation