In an attempt to improve customer service, Alpha Toys Inc. decided to assign a team to investigate the kinds of services offered by competing companies. The team discovered that a smaller company, AB Games Co., seemed to have outstanding customer service. The team then determined the major differences between the two companies and developed a plan to incorporate the best elements of AB Games into Alpha Toys. Which of the following is being implemented by Alpha Toys? a. environmental dynamism.
b. benchmarking.
c. strategic maneuvering.
d. cooperative action.
e. forecasting.

Guardian inc. is trying to develop an asset-financing plan. the firm has $450,000 in temporary current assets and $350,000 in permanent current assets. guardian also has $550,000 in fixed assets. assume a tax rate of 40 percent. a. construct two alternative financing plans for guardian. one of the plans should be conservative, with 70 percent of assets financed by long-term sources, and the other should be aggressive, with only 56.25 percent of assets financed by long-term sources. the current interest rate is 12 percent on long-term funds and 7 percent on short-term financing. compute the annual interest payments under each plan.

Burke enterprises is considering a machine costing $30 billion that will result in initial after-tax cash savings of $3.7 billion at the end of the first year, and these savings will grow at a rate of 2 percent per year for 11 years. after 11 years, the company can sell the parts for $5 billion. burke has a target debt/equity ratio of 1.2, a beta of 1.79. you estimate that the return on the market is 7.5% and t-bills are currently yielding 2.5%. burke has two issuances of bonds outstanding. the first has 200,000 bonds trading at 98% of par, with coupons of 5%, face of $1000, and maturity of 5 years. the second has 500,000 bonds trading at par, with coupons of 7.5%, face of $1000, and maturity of 12 years. kate, the ceo, usually applies an adjustment factor to the discount rate of +2 for such highly innovative projects. should the company take on the project?

Suppose the marginal damage and marginal benefit curves in a polluted neighborhood are md = p/3 and mb = 4 – p. also, suppose that transactions costs are low, so that the consumers and the firm can bargain. we saw that in this case, the socially-optimal level of pollution is achieved. start by computing the socially-optimal p. then, for each of the following cases, compute the amount of money transferred through the bargaining process, and indicate who pays whom (i.e., whether consumers pay the firm, or vice versa). also, compute the gains to each party relative to the status quo (i.e., the starting point of the bargaining process).a)consumers have the right to clean air; firm is dominant in the bargaining process.b)consumers have the right to clean air; consumers are dominant in the bargaining process.c)firm has the right to pollute; firm is dominant in the bargaining process.d)firm has the right to pollute; consumers are dominant in the bargaining proces