Sharon runs a boutique. She gets the raw materials from a cloth mill owner who provides her various fabrics at discounted rates. She installs a system that automatically analyzes her inventory and coordinates with the cloth mill owner whenever the inventory seems low. In this scenario, Sharon displays good business sense and has an efficient:

A. vendor-managed inventory.
B. supply chain.
C. line of command.
D. interest group.

Suppose that two firms produce differentiated products and compete in prices. as in class, the two firms are located at two ends of a line one mile apart. consumers are evenly distributed along the line. the firms have identical marginal cost, $60. firm b produces a product with value $110 to consumers.firm a (located at 0 on the unit line) produces a higher quality product with value $120 to consumers. the cost of travel are directly related to the distance a consumer travels to purchase a good. if a consumerhas to travel a mile to purchase a good, the incur a cost of $20. if they have to travel x fraction of a mile, they incur a cost of $20x. (a) write down the expressions for how much a consumer at location d would value the products sold by firms a and b, if they set prices p_{a} and p_{b} ? (b) based on your expressions in (a), how much will be demanded from each firm if prices p_{a} and p_{b} are set? (c) what are the nash equilibrium prices?

A4-year project has an annual operating cash flow of $59,000. at the beginning of the project, $5,000 in net working capital was required, which will be recovered at the end of the project. the firm also spent $23,900 on equipment to start the project. this equipment will have a book value of $5,260 at the end of the project, but can be sold for $6,120. the tax rate is 35 percent. what is the year 4 cash flow?

Google started as one of many internet search engines, amazon started as an online book seller, and ebay began as a site where people could sell used personal items in auctions. these firms have grown to be so large and dominant that they are facing antitrust scrutiny from competition regulators in the us and elsewhere. did these online giants grow by fairly beating competition, or did they use unfair advantages? are there any clouds on the horizon for these firms -- could they face diseconomies of scale or diseconomies of scope as they continue to grow? if so, what factors may limit their continued growth?