Question

Amari has two jobs, one for the winter and one for the summer. In the winter, he works as a lift attendant at a ski resort where he earns $18 per hour. During the summer, he drives a tour bus around the ski resort, earning $13 per hour.
Refer to Scenario 18-3. If Amari takes more hours of leisure in the winter than in the summer, we can assume that his labor supply curve for the range of earnings in this example:
a. is vertical.
b. has a backward-bending portion.
c. is horizontal
d. is upward sloping.

Answer 1

Answer: b. has a backward-bending portion.

Explanation:

A backward-bending supply curve shows what happens when people substitute higher wages for more leisure time like Amari is doing in this scenario.

At a higher wage, people will be able to work for shorter hours as such a job will still give them the same amount of money as working longer in lower paying jobs.

After they get a certain level of payment from the higher paying job, they will then substitute the remaining hours for leisure. This creates a backward-bending curve because labor hours are reducing past a certain level of wages.