Can you explain the answer to this question for me? If a consumer’s marginal rate of substitution of good X for good Y (MRSxy) is equal to 2, then the: A Consumer is willing to give up two units of X for one unit of Y B Slope of a line tangent to the indifference curve at that point is 2. C Slope of a line tangent to the indifference curve at that point is -2

• C Slope of a line tangent to the indifference curve at that point is -2

Explanation:

• Note that marginal rate of substitution refers to the amount of goods a consumer is willing to consume in relation to another good.
• if the MRSxy = 2, the consumer will give up 2 units of Y to obtain 1 additional unit of X.
• One thing to note is that marginal rate of substitution is the absolute value of the slope of the indifference curve. This means that we ignore the negative value of the indifference curve slope. Always, the slope of the indifference curve is negative so in the above scenario, the Slope of a line tangent to the indifference curve at that point is -2
• The slope is always negative because a consumer has to give off one good in order to increase consumption of another thus the curve slopes downward