Alternative formats in teaching the analytics of quality-differentiated demand

This paper examines three alternative formats in the analytics of teaching quality-differentiated demand in intermediate microeconomics: graphic, algebraic, and spreadsheet. It presents an extended application of algebra as the most succinct and dexterous format once the analytics move from a static quality-differentiated demand and cost structure to ones involving shifts and movements across structures. Algebraic applications of quality-differentiated demand to the analytics of monopoly costs, regulation, peak-load pricing, and third-degree price discrimination are presented as enhancements to both the scope and pedagogy of conventional treatments of these topics in undergraduate microeconomics.