2012年05月IB经济SL真题下载-Paper2
1. Study the extract below and answer the questions that follow.
EU court rules minimum price for cigarettes illegal
（1）The European Court of Justice has ruled that Ireland cannot impose a minimum price on cigarettes. It said that member countries would have to find other ways to combat smoking. This could be achieved by increasing indirect tax on tobacco, but imposing a minimum price would distort fair competition in the market. The ruling is designed to maintain the freedom of manufacturers and importers to benefit from lower costs and greater efficiency.
（2）The judgment said the aim of ensuring that tobacco prices are high can be “adequately” achieved by increasing tax, since any indirect tax rises are, sooner or later, reflected in an increased retail price, without removing the freedom of manufacturers to set prices.
（3）The Irish government had claimed that it needed to fix a high minimum price to discourage smoking. This followed government legislation to ban tobacco advertising and promotion in July 2009. According to a spokesperson from the anti-smoking group ASH (Action on Smoking and Health), this measure helped to prevent retail outlets from making young people feel attracted to buying cigarettes. “Close to 30 % of our population still smoke and 7000 die from tobacco-related disease each year,” he said.
（4）It has been argued that increasing the price of cigarettes is one of the most effective ways of curbing harmful smoking and there is a need to make cigarettes less appealing, particularly to young people. The evidence is that banning advertising, introducing minimum pricing and increasing health warnings can all work.
（5）The head of a major retail organization has attacked the idea of minimum pricing for cigarettes. He argued that artificially fixing a minimum price would not be effective. Also, since the demand for tobacco is inelastic, raising the price would not work. Moreover, it was against the free market for a government to set prices for any product available to consumers, limiting their freedom to choose.
(a) Define the following terms indicated in bold in the text:
(i) minimum price (paragraph （1）)
(ii) free market (paragraph （5）).
(b) Using an appropriate diagram, explain the possible effect on the market for cigarettes of the ban on tobacco advertising in Ireland.
(c) Using an appropriate diagram, explain why, if the demand for cigarettes is inelastic, raising the price may not be effective.
(d) Using information from the text/data and your knowledge of economics,evaluate the economic effects of the imposition of a minimum price for cigarettes.
2. Study the extract and data below and answer the questions that follow.
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2012年05月IB经济SL真题余下省略！
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