I haven’t seen Sultan yet, and I may end up not watching it, but I have seen my fair share of Bhai films (it’s only a matter of time before it becomes a genre by itself, capital B and all). And they’re entertaining, there’s no doubt about that.

As an economist who’s learnt about rational human beings though, there’s a lot that causes befuddlement where Bhai movies are concerned. In this post, though, I’m just focusing on one of these aspects: first weekend prices for Bhai movies.

Apparently, they’ve gone as high as 1200 per seat. Now, you might say, if you’re a Bhai acolyte, that it’s just because demand tends to be so high for His films. But it’s not just high demand (and this is what this post is all about), it’s also about inelastic demand.

Us economists are big on elasticity, and you’re about to find out why. Elasticity (or sensitivity) is simply the percentage by which demand goes down when prices go up. If, for a little change in price, there is a very large change in demand, we say a good is very price elastic. If, on the other hand, no matter what the change in price, demand stays the same, we say a good is very price inelastic.

Think cigarettes. Or Bhai films. Same story.

Now, demand can change because of a lot of things. It can change because income goes up or down, for example. A family that sees a drop in income might cut back on eating out (high income elasticity), but will not cut down on medicines (low income elasticity). It can change because the price of other goods goes up or down (drinking lesser chai because the prices of sugar have gone through the roof, or drinking more coffee because the prices of chai have gone through the roof).

All of these are examples of demand for a good changing (or not) because of a change in the price of that good, an associated good, or income. And that’s all elasticity is.

Of course, as recent events have proved, the demand for Bhai’s films is inelastic insensitive to what he says as well, but that’s a whole different story, okay?