How will a Change in the Interest Rate Change the Future

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People tend to try and predict what their future needs will be in order for them to be able to satisfy their current and future wants. The two-period model of intertemporal choice tries to interpret based on the current time period (e.g. this month) and a prediction of the future time period (e.g. next month) what consumers will be able to spend, borrow or save according to their levels of income and interest rates. In this assignment however we are mostly concerned on the changes of interest rate and specifically the impact an increase in the level of interest rates would have to consumers who are either savers or borrowers in the first period and how would that affect their consumption levels.
Generally it is well known in economics that purchasers always want to maximize their utility levels. The maximum utility is given by the formulae of max U = f(C, C’) being subject to the equation of future consumption {[Y – C](1+r) + W = C’ – Y’} . This is an important part for our assumptions since a customer would have problem determining his/her maximum utility for present as well as future consumption when faced with a certain lifetime budget constraint. The budget line represents the levels of consumption for both periods according to some factors such as present and future income as well as the interest rate level and has a slope of –(1+r ). Before considering the effects of a change in the interest rates it is important to understand the first step of the consumption model. In the diagrams A and B below, we can understand that (I) the indifference curves, act on behalf of the equal levels of utility satisfaction derived from different mixtures of present and future consumption. That being said the point (W), which is identified a...

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...come worse off. That is due to the reason that an increase in the level of interest rate leads to a relatively smaller current consumption, since borrowing from the future is not the ideal solution because it has become more expensive than before. Generally for a borrower current consumption always falls while savings rise.
To conclude, I believe it is understandable by now that for a consumer who is a saver in the first period has not become worse off and in some occasions where the income effect exceeds the substitution effect has become better off. On the other hand a borrower in the first period has definitely become worse off than before.

Works Cited

http://www.digitaleconomist.org/tpc_4020.html http://www.uam.es/personal_pdi/economicas/mjansen/teaching/dynamicmacroenglish/lecture3_en_2012.pdf http://pioneer.netserv.chula.ac.th/~tsaksit/micro2/lecture2_1.pdf

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