Improving quality seems to be a strategic weapon in gaining market share. however, improving quality entails allocation of resources and effort. as greater effort is expended to stop defects before they occur, which one of the following costs increases? a) prevention costsb) appraisal costsc) internal failure costsd) external failure costs

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.

A$100 million interest rate swap has a remaining life of 10 months. under the terms of the swap, the six-month libor is exchanged semi-annually for 12% per annum. the six-month libor rate in swaps of all maturities is currently 10% per annum with continuous compounding. the six-month libor rate was 9.6% per annum two months ago. what is the current value of the swap to the party paying floating? what is its value to the party paying fixed?

Bathlinks corporation has a debt to assets ratio of 73%. this tells the user of bathlinks’s financial statements that a. bathlinks is getting a 27% return on its assets. b. there is a risk that bathlinks cannot pay its debts as they come due. c. 73% of the assets are financed by the stockholders. d. based on this measure, the user should not invest in bathlinks.