The following labor standards have been established for a particular product: Standard labor-hours per unit of output 8.0 hours Standard labor rate $ 15.50 per hour The following data pertain to operations concerning the product for the last month: Actual hours worked 10,100 hours Actual total labor cost $ 154,025 Actual output 1,200 units What is the labor rate variance for the month? Multiple Choice $300 F $2,525 F $2,525 U $300 U

Suppose that kenji, an economist from an am talk radio program, and lucia, an economist from a school of industrial relations, are arguing over health insurance. the following dialogue shows an excerpt from their debate: lucia: a popular topic for debate among politicians as well as economists is the idea of providing government assistance for health benefits. kenji: i think it is oppressive for the government to tax people who take care of themselves in order to pay for health insurance for those who are obese. lucia: i disagree. i think government funding of health insurance is useful to ensure basic fairness. the disagreement between these economists is most likely due to . despite their differences, with which proposition are two economists chosen at random most likely to agree? lawyers make up an excessive percentage of elected officials. minimum wage laws do more to harm low-skilled workers than them. tariffs and import quotas generally reduce economic welfare.

Suppose a ceiling fan manufacturer has the total cost function c(x) = 48x + 1485 and the total revenue function r(x) = 75x. (a) what is the equation of the profit function p(x) for this commodity? p(x) = (b) what is the profit on 35 units? p(35) = interpret your result. the total costs are less than the revenue. the total costs are more than the revenue. the total costs are exactly the same as the revenue. (c) how many fans must be sold to avoid losing money? fans

Consider the local telephone company, a natural monopoly. the following graph shows the monthly demand curve for phone services and the company’s marginal revenue (mr), marginal cost (mc), and average total cost (atc) curves. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 price (dollars per subscription) quantity (thousands of subscriptions) d mr mc atc 8, 60 suppose that the government has decided not to regulate this industry, and the firm is free to maximize profits, without constraints. complete the first row of the following table. pricing mechanism short run long-run decision quantity price profit (subscriptions) (dollars per subscription) profit maximization marginal-cost pricing average-cost pricing suppose that the government forces the monopolist to set the price equal to marginal cost. complete the second row of the previous table. suppose that the government forces the monopolist to set the price equal to average total cost. complete the third row of the previous table. under average-cost pricing, the government will raise the price of output whenever a firm’s costs increase, and lower the price whenever a firm’s costs decrease. over time, under the average-cost pricing policy, what will the local telephone company most likely do