Marin's Cleaning Supplies Company has an idea for a cleaner that is universal and can clean any surface type. This could simplify the cleaning process for homeowners, as well as janitors and other professional cleaners. When doing business analysis, the most important question this company should consider when deciding whether to develop this product is:

You are chairman of the board of a successful technology firm. there is a nominal federal corporate tax rate of 35 percent, yet the effective tax rate of the typical corporation is about 12.6%. your firm has been clever with use of transfer pricing and keeping money abroad and has barely paid any taxes over the last 5 years; during this same time period, profits were $28 billion. one member of the board feels that it is un-american to use various accounting strategies in order to avoid paying taxes. others feel that these are legal loopholes and corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to minimize taxes. one board member quoted what the ceo of exxon once said: “i’m not a u.s. company and i don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the u.s.” what are the alternatives? what are your recommendations? why do you recommend this course of action?

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)

The basic difference between macroeconomics and microeconomics is that: a. microeconomics looks at the forest (aggregate markets) while macroeconomics looks at the trees (individual markets). b. macroeconomics is concerned with groups of individuals while microeconomics is concerned with single countries. c. microeconomics is concerned with the trees (individual markets) while macroeconomics is concerned with the forest (aggregate markets). d. macroeconomics is concerned with generalization while microeconomics is concerned with specialization.