Final answer:
If consumers expect the price of beef to rise in the future, they will buy more now, leading to an increase in both equilibrium price and quantity today.
Step-by-step explanation:
When consumers anticipate a future increase in the price of beef, their demand for beef today increases as they seek to purchase it before it becomes more expensive. This shift in demand causes the equilibrium price to increase because demand outpaces the current supply. Similarly, the equilibrium quantity also increases as producers respond to the higher prices by supplying more beef to the market, and consumers are buying more beef now to avoid higher prices later.
To understand this situation better, consider the graph of a coffee market at equilibrium, where a price of $4 leads to an equilibrium quantity of 200 million pounds of coffee. If a similar increase in demand happened in the coffee market, the new equilibrium price would be higher, and the quantity demanded and supplied would also be higher than before.
In this scenario, the correct answer to what will happen to the equilibrium price and equilibrium quantity of beef today is that the price will increase, and the quantity will increase.