Which firm is most likely to be a natural monopoly?
a. a restaurant that is unable to practice price discrimination and must charge all consumers the same price
b. a firm that owns nearly all the diamond mines in the world municipal power light, the local supplier of electricity
c. a pharmaceutical company that has the exclusive right to sell a patented drug

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.

Acompany that makes shopping carts for supermarkets and other stores recently purchased some new equipment that reduces the labor content of the jobs needed to produce the shopping carts. prior to buying the new equipment, the company used 6 workers, who produced an average of 79 carts per hour. workers receive $16 per hour, and machine coast was $49 per hour. with the new equipment, it was possible to transfer one of the workers to another department, and equipment cost increased by $11 per hour while output increased by four carts per hour. a) compute the multifactor productivity (mfp) (labor plus equipment) under the prior to buying the new equipment. the mfp (carts/$) = (round to 4 decimal places). b) compute the productivity changes between the prior to and after buying the new equipment. the productivity growth = % (round to 2 decimal places)

During january 2018, the following transactions occur: january 1 purchase equipment for $20,600. the company estimates a residual value of $2,600 and a five-year service life. january 4 pay cash on accounts payable, $10,600. january 8 purchase additional inventory on account, $93,900. january 15 receive cash on accounts receivable, $23,100 january 19 pay cash for salaries, $30,900. january 28 pay cash for january utilities, $17,600. january 30 firework sales for january total $231,000. all of these sales are on account. the cost of the units sold is $120,500. the following information is available on january 31, 2018. depreciation on the equipment for the month of january is calculated using the straight-line method. the company estimates future uncollectible accounts. at the end of january, considering the total ending balance of the accounts receivable account as shown on the general ledger tab, $4,100 is now past due (older than 90 days), while the remainder of the balance is current (less than 90 days old). the company estimates that 50% of the past due balance will be uncollectible and only 3% of the current balance will become uncollectible. record the estimated bad debt expense. accrued interest revenue on notes receivable for january. unpaid salaries at the end of january are $33,700. accrued income taxes at the end of january are $10,100