An employee earns $24 per hour and 1.5 times that rate for all hours in excess of 40 hours per week. Assume that the employee worked 55 hours during the week, and that the gross pay prior to the current week totaled $34,800. Assume further that the social security tax rate was 6.0%, the Medicare tax rate was 1.5%, and federal income tax to be withheld was $345.

Required:
a. Determine the gross pay for the week.
b. Determine the net pay for the week.

Who is better at multi-tasking? in business, employees are often asked to perform a complex task when their atten-tion is divided (i.e., multi-tasking). human factors (may 2014) published a study designed to determine whether video game players are better than non–video game play-ers at multi-tasking. each in a sample of 60 college stu-dents was classified as a video game player or a non-player. participants entered a street crossing simulator and were asked to cross a busy street at an unsigned intersec-tion. the simulator was designed to have cars traveling at various high rates of speed in both directions. during the crossing, the students also performed a memory task as a distraction. two variables were measured for each student: (1) a street crossing performance score (measured out of 100 points) and (2) a memory task score (measured out of 20 points). the researchers found no differences in either the street crossing performance or memory task score of video game players and non-gamers. “these results,” say the researchers, “suggest that action video game players [and non-gamers] are equally susceptible to the costs of dividing attention in a complex task”

4. suppose that pollution in a neighborhood comes from two factories, with marginal benefit curves given by mb1 = 12 – p1 and mb2 = 8 – p2. the level of pollution in the neighborhood is given by p = p1 + p2. the government wants to limit pollution by instituting a pollution-rights market. the government’s desired level of p is 10, so it prints 10 pollution rights and offers them for sale to the firms.a)find the equilibrium selling price of a pollution right, as well as the allocation of rights (and hence pollution levels) across the two factories. b)repeat part (a) for the case where the government’s desired level of pollution equals 14. c)comment on the usefulness of a pollution rights market in achieving efficient levels of pollution abatement.

Cash flows during the first year of operations for the harman-kardon consulting company were as follows: cash collected from customers, $385,000; cash paid for rent, $49,000; cash paid to employees for services rendered during the year, $129,000; cash paid for utilities, $59,000. in addition, you determine that customers owed the company $69,000 at the end of the year and no bad debts were anticipated. also, the company owed the gas and electric company $2,900 at year-end, and the rent payment was for a two-year period.