Data Response

      1- A) Demand: The quantity of a good or service that consumers are willing and able to purchase at a given price in a given time period. 

B) Economic Growth: A growth in national income per capita, which means a steady development in the productive capacity of the economy.

2- One possible reason for the increase in copper prices is the increase in demand for the product. From reading the article we learn that there is a high demand of copper in China due to several different projects taking place in the location. Some of these include constructions and the “Shanghai Expo” as well as goods such as cables made of copper ("huge quantities of electrical cable were laid.") and factors such as China´s economic growth. These factors immediately have a rising impact on the demand of copper at any price for it´s a necessary material to achieve the closure of projects in the current structural development of the country.

An increase in demand for copper is expressed in the graph below with a shift to the right on the demand curve, which could possibly affect the price, and should eventually keep the supply curve in place if followed the rule of ceteris parabus. However, there must be a period of excess supply in order for suppliers to learn the real demand values and create equilibrium between the two factors; this is represented in the space between Q1 and Q2. To meet this equilibrium, the suppliers will increase the Price of the product when the supply is scarce, for the demand will rise inversely to this fall. 

3- The price of consumer goods such as new washing machines might be expected to rise due to a   predicted increase in demand for regular goods to supply the new constructed structures. ("And, at the end of every new power socket is a demand for new washing machines, fridges and other products that need copper”). The article states that "the price of copper passed $8,000 tons." meaning that products such as washing machines and fridges, which need copper to be built, will dramatically increase in price too for their production will become far more expensive, this is a non-price determinant.

When the price increases, the supply curve shifts to the left because less quantity of the product is supplied at every price. To find equilibrium by exercising ceteris parabus, the price will eventually have to drop in order to attract more consumers and sell more quantities of the product at every price.

The graph below shows a shift to the right of the supply curve, and the period of excess supply between Q2 and Q1. The market will eventually raise the price to compensate for this lowered supply will make the product more desired and scarce. Equilibrium is then found at a new balanced price.

                          

                   

4-Taking into account the fact that the copper industry is very much needed for daily-use apparatus (washing machines, cables), I would probably speculate that although the building of specific projects in China that use copper will end soon, making the copper demand drop to some extend, there are many other important uses given to this material and there is a period of time during which these apparatus work until they have to be replaced. I believe that when the projects finalize, the demand for copper will decrease, but it will not be a drastic fall due to the new acquisition of these previously mentioned goods for a short time afterwards. However, I must assume that after the period for acquisition expires and all of the needs at the time are satisfy, there will actually be a drastic drop in the demand for the material at least for a period of time, making the suppliers lower the price and production of the product, until the average time for replacement of these parts comes again, forcing consumers to buy more of the product to replace the old ones, or when a new project arises that requires copper as a part of it´s structure.