Assignment title: Information
Task 1: Industry Structure: a) Compare the cost of a standard taxi ride versus a ride with UberX from Deakin University, Burwood campus to the Melbourne Tullamarine airport. Which would you prefer? Explain your answer.b) Assume that the taxi industry operates in an unregulated market and is characterized by monopolistic competition. Assume also that taxis and Uber are substitutes.(i) Using diagrams, illustrate and discuss the long-run equilibrium of the taxi industry and individual monopolistic competitive taxi companies before and after the introduction of UberX. (Hint: use one diagram for the industry and a separate diagram for the individual taxi company.)(ii) To what extent does the monopolistic competition model accurately reflect the taxi market in Victoria?(iii) To what extent does the oligopoly, or the monopoly, model accurately reflect the taxi market in Victoria?Task 2: Prices. a) In this task we first explore the value of a Victorian tax license.(i) Construct a time series graph of the price of a Victorian license, for the years 2004 to 2014 (plot the years on the horizontal axis and the price of the licence on the vertical axis). You can use Excel or any other program to construct the graph.(ii) Referring to the graph you constructed in (i) above, discuss the patterns in the value of the taxi license.(iii) It is often claimed that the introduction of Uber in 2012 led to a collapse in the taxi license price. Evaluate this claim with reference to the time series graph you constructed in part (i)? What factors other than Uber affect the taxi license price?b) According to the Taxi Services Commission webpage: "In metropolitan Melbourne, you will pay the lowest fares during the day, a little more for overnight and peak fares after 10pm on Friday and Saturday nights." Explain the logic behind the regulator changing the fixed price for taxi services so that it varies over the course of the day and across the week.