Price Rationing Limits Access to Scarce Goods

Steps:

• Define rationing function: Prices rise with scarcity, excluding lower-willingness buyers to allocate to highest bidders.
• Evaluate options against definition: Check if they show prices restricting consumer access without intervention.
• Eliminate mismatches: Discard production-focused or government-involved choices.
• Confirm match: Select option illustrating consumer exclusion via higher prices.

Why D is correct:

• Rationing occurs when rising prices due to scarcity make goods unaffordable, allocating them to consumers with highest willingness to pay, per basic supply-demand law.

Why the others are wrong:

• A: Describes resource reallocation in production (incentive function), not consumer rationing.
• B: Involves government price controls, bypassing market price mechanism.
• C: Shows producer response to price signals for expansion, not limiting consumer access.

Final answer: D