2. (4 points) consider two cities, flexville and rigid city, that have the same equilibrium wage and the same equilibrium total employment. the export industries in the two cities produce the same good. in flexville, export firms produce with variable factor proportions—that is, they can easily adjust the amount of labor in response to changes in the wage, i. e., the price of labor. in rigid city, export firms produce with fixed (or less variable) factor proportions, meaning it is quite difficult to change the amount of labor. suppose that both cities find a way to increase the quality of residential public services (e. g. public schools, parks, libraries) without increasing taxes. use two supply-demand graphs, one for each city, to show the effects of the improvements in public services on • equilibrium employment • the equilibrium wage

Ajustification for job training programs is that they improve worker productivity. suppose that you are asked to evaluate whether more job training makes workers more productive. however, rather than having data on individual workers, you have access to data on manufacturing firms in ohio. in particu- lar, for each firm, you have information on hours of job training per worker (training) and number of nondefective items produced per worker hour (output). (i) carefully state the ceteris paribus thought experiment underlying this policy question. (ii) does it seem likely that a firm’s decision to train its workers will be independent of worker characteristics? what are some of those measurable and unmeasurable worker characteristics? (iii) name a factor other than worker characteristics that can affect worker productivity. (iv) if you find a positive correlation between output and training, would you have convincingly established that job training makes workers more productive? explain.

Laval produces lamps and home lighting fixtures. its most popular product is a brushed aluminum desk lamp. this lamp is made from components shaped in the fabricating department and assembled in the assembly department. information related to the 22,000 desk lamps produced annually follows.direct materials $280,000direct labor fabricating department (8,000 dlh × $24 per dlh) $192,000assembly department (16,600 dlh × $26 per dlh) $431,600machine hours fabricating department $15,200mhassembly department $20,850mhexpected overhead cost and related data for the two production departments follow.fabricating assemblydirect labor hours 150,000dlh 295,000dlhmachine hours 161,000mh 128,000mhoverhead cost $400,000 430,000required1. determine the plantwide overhead rate for laval using direct labor hours as a base.2. determine the total manufacturing cost per unit for the aluminum desk lamp using the plantwide overhead rate.3. compute departmental overhead rates based on machine hours in the fabricating department and direct labor hours in the assembly department.4. use departmental overhead rates from requirement 3 to determine the total manufacturing cost per unit for the aluminum desk lamps.

Afamily wishes to save for future college expenses. which financial tool should the family invest in?