How does inflation affect investments? a.) it reduces the monetary value of the rate of return. b.) it creates a negative market psychology and decreases asset prices. c.) it makes investments less liquid. d.) it increases the market price of investments.

Upscale hotels in the united states recently cut their prices by 20 percent in an effort to bolster dwindling occupancy rates among business travelers. a survey performed by a major research organization indicated that businesses are wary of current economic conditions and are now resorting to electronic media, such as the internet and the telephone, to transact business. assume a company's budget permits it to spend $5,000 per month on either business travel or electronic media to transact business. graphically illustrate how a 20 percent decline in the price of business travel would impact this company's budget set if the price of business travel was initially $1,000 per trip and the price of electronic media was $500 per hour. suppose that, after the price of business travel drops, the company issues a report indicating that its marginal rate of substitution between electronic media and business travel is 1. is the company allocating resources efficiently? explain.

Gino's restaurant is a popular restaurant in boston, massachusetts. the owner of the restaurant has been trying to better understand costs at the restaurant and has hired a student intern to conduct an activity-based costing study. the intern, in consultation with the owner, identified the following major activities: activity cost pool activity measure serving a party of diners number of parties served serving a diner number of diners served serving drinks number of drinks ordered some costs, such as the cost of cleaning the linens that cover the restaurant's tables, vary with the number of parties served. other costs, such as washing plates and glasses, depends on the number of diners served or the number of drinks served. data concerning these activities are shown below. serving a party serving a dinner serving drinks total total cost $47,600 $153,000 $59,800 $260,400 total activity 7,000 parties 30,000 diners 46,000 drinks prior to the activity-based costing study, the owner knew very little about the costs of the restaurant. she knew that the total cost for the month was $260,400 and that 30,000 diners had been served. therefore, the average cost per diner was $8.68.required: 1. compute the activity rates for each of the three activities 2. according to the activity-based costing system, what is the total cost of serving each of the following parties of diners? a. a party of four diners who ordered three drinks in total b. a party of two diners who do not order any drinks c. a lone diner who orders two drinks 3. convert the total costs you computed in part (1) above to costs per diner. in other words, what is the average cost per diner for serving each of the following parties: a. a party of four diners who order three drinks in total b. a party of two diner who do not order any drinks c. a lone diner who orders two drinks 4. why do the costs per diner for the three different parties differ from each other and from the overall average coast of $9.80 per diner?

The treasurer for pittsburgh iron works wishes to use financial futures to hedge her interest rate exposure. she will sell five treasury futures contracts at $139,000 per contract. it is july and the contracts must be closed out in december of this year. long-term interest rates are currently 7.30 percent. if they increase to 9.50 percent, assume the value of the contracts will go down by 20 percent. also if interest rates do increase by 2.2 percent, assume the firm will have additional interest expense on its business loans and other commitments of $149,000. this expense, of course, will be separate from the futures contracts. a. what will be the profit or loss on the futures contract if interest rates increase to 9.50 percent by december when the contract is closed out