Per capita consumption

Question

Got confused in this one. Can someone explain in detail?

bassiseema · Answer

OA plz

Economist · Answer

Answer should be B.

Meat consumption across all income levels is the same. Eg. A person who earns 10K dollars and a person who earns 2K dollars consume the same amount of meat. The argument assumes that if income ( or per capita income ) rises meat demand will also rise.

B attacks this by saying that meat consumption is the same across all income levels and hence it wont make any difference to the demand for meat even if the country prospers and income rises.

Interested in OA.

sandipchowdhury · Answer

Interesting logic. But one basic flaw. YOU CANNOT DOUBT THE FACT GIVEN IN QUESTION STEM.
The question stem says "with growing prosperity there is a steady increase in per capita consupmtion of meat"... B says something quite different. You should not interpret something from the statment which goes against the fact of the question stem.

Moreover, Now there is x income level and x1 consumtion.(which may be same across income level)
In future there will be X+d income level and X1+d1 consumtion. ( consumption will be higher, whether it is same or not across income groups does not mater)

The answer should be D.

Str of the argument is:
There will be a shortage so B will become an importer GRAIN.

D does not deny any fact from the question but it gives an alternative solution: B also can be a importer of MEAT. ( not grain)

Economist · Answer

You are right upto some extent. However,

Why B> The argument's conclusion is based on per capita income rise. "since..." So the best way to critic is by attacking this conclusion.

Why not D> It wont matter if grain is costly or meat is costly. Either case people will use grain as well as meat. We are talking about supply-demand and per capita income and not about the best commodity to import.

These are my views, so I may be wrong

Lets check the OA.

pmal04 · Answer

OA is D.

rampuria · Answer

If its more economical for a country to import meant than grain, it is likely that the country will import meat and put its doemstic resourcs for production of grains. Hence D...

To be honest i was not able to decide between b and d.

proych · Answer

I vote for D as well.

As mentioned earlier, and in the problem statement, consumption of meat is positively proportional to economic prosperity. More income - more meat - more grain required to produce the meat.

Conclusion: Since meat consumption is increasing, grain consumption will also. Country cannot increase production of grain, hence import grain.

Weaken: D - Why import grain when you might as well import meat?

Per capita consumption

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