reflection statement: Atleast 600 words. What are the top 2 issues you believe are facing the Human Resources Profession? Explain in detail/reasoning for your choices and what actions could be taken to work through these issues? How will you apply what you already know or what you have learned about Human Resources?

Benchmarking activity in healthcare?

Clinical practice benchmarking?

Conclusion of benchmarking in healthcare?

1. Suppose there are two firms in a market producing differentiated products. Both firms have MC=0. The demand for firm 1 and 2's products are given by:

q₁(p₁,p₂) = 5-2p₁+p₂

q₂(p₁,p₂) = 5-2p₂+p₁

a. First, suppose that the two firms compete in prices (i.e. Bertrand). Compute and graph each firm's best response functions. What is the sign of the slope of the firms' best-response functions? Are prices strategic substitutes or complements?

b. Solve for the Nash equilibrium prices and quantities when the two firms play Bertrand. Calculate the firm's profits.

c. Next, assume firms compete in quantities (i.e. Cournot). Solve for firm 1 and 2's inverse demand functions (i.e. solve the demand equations for p as a function of q).

d. Compute and graph each firm's best response functions. What is the sign of the slope of the firms' best-response functions? Are quantities strategic substitutes or complements?

e. Solve for the Nash equilibrium prices and quantities when the two firms play Cournot. Calculate the firm's profits.

f. Compare the market outcomes in parts (a) and (c). Is the equilibrium outcome more competitive under price or quantity competition?

What are "scarce resources" and how do we compensate for the use of these resources? Explain why we need efficient allocation of scarce resources as opposed to effective allocation. Define economics

n July 2007, Apple released the iPhone at a price of $599. Only two months later, the company dropped the price by 33% to $399. The early iPhone customers were angry about the sudden drop in price and felt they had overpaid for the product. See the letter below that Steve Jobs wrote to these customers. not surprisingly, members of the news media received the message and shared it with the general public.

INSTRUCTIONS: Write a clear and concise assessment of whether or not you think this is an effective business communication. Provide support for your answer. Organize your response into a clear introduction, body, and conclusion. Use the appropriate format for business writing.

***

Letter from Steve Jobs

To All iPhone Customers:

I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of the iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale. After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions.

First, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399, and that now is the right time to do it. iPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to "go for it" this holiday season. iPhone is so far ahead of the competition, and now it will be affordable by even more customers. It benefits both Apple and every iPhone user to get as many new customers as possible in the iPhone "tent." We strongly believe the $399 price will help us do just that this holiday season.

Second, being in technology for 30+ years I can attest to the fact that the technology road is bumpy. There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever. This is life in the technology lane. If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you'll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon. The good news is that if you buy products from companies that support them well, like Apple tries to do, you will receive years of useful and satisfying service from them even as newer models are introduced.

Third, even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.

Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple's website next week. Stay tuned. We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers.

We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.

Steve Jobs

Apple CEO

1. 2. Top Gun Marketing, Inc., offers overhead banner fly-by promotion services using their Cessna aircraft and banner creation facilities. The Padres Island firm specializes in restaurant promotion via fly-bys at outdoor events and other high traffic centers, where each 10 minute increment of advertising costs $300. Over the past year, the following relation between fly-by advertising and incremental restaurant guests per month has been observed:

Sales (units) = 5,200 + 50A - 0.5A²

Here A represents a 10-minute fly-by advertisement, and sales are measured in numbers of restaurant guests.

Pete Mitchel, manager for the Padres Island firm, has been asked to recommend an appropriate level of advertising. In thinking about this problem, Mitchel noted its resemblance to the optimal resource employment problem he had studied in a managerial economics course that was part of his MBA program. The advertising-sales relation could be thought of as a production function with advertising as an input and sales as the output. The problem is to determine the profit-maximizing level of employment for the input, advertising, in this "production" system. Mitchel recognized that to solve the problem he needed a measure of output value. After consultation with the restaurant, he determined that the value of output is $10 per guest, the net marginal revenue earned by the client (price minus all marginal costs except fly-by advertising).

If the U.S. favors protectionism (e.g. abolishing NAFTA, applying tariffs to imports), how will it impact the economy and who will be the winners and losers?

To better to assess your willingness-to-pay for advertising on others’ websites, you want to learn the mean profit per visit for all visits to your website. To accomplish this, you have collected a random sample of 50 visits to your website over the past 6 months. This sample includes information on visit duration and profits.

Let the null hypothesis be the mean profit per visit for all of your visitors be $11.50. (a) Calculate the corresponding t-stat for this null hypothesis. (b) Calculate the corresponding p-value for this null hypothesis. (c)With strength of 95% decide whether or not to reject this null hypothesis. (d) Detail the reasoning behind your decision.

**Include excel details, if possible.**

8) Explain how the US government conducts trade policy. Make sure to discuss some of its unique institutional features, internal contradictions, and multiple levels

What are 2 reasons for using quotas over tariffs?  Explain 3 types of tariffs (nominal tariff, effective tariff rate, tariff-rate quota).   Explain.

18. A grocery store introducing items from Italy is interested in analyzing buying trends of these new “international” items, namely prosciutto, peroni, risotto, and gelato. The file GroceryStore provides data on a collection of transactions in item-list format. a. Using a minimum support of 100 transactions and a minimum confidence of 50%,
use XLMiner to generate a list of association rules. How many rules satisfy this
criterion? b. Using a minimum support of 250 transactions and a minimum confidence of 50%,
use XLMiner to generate a list of association rules. How many rules satisfy this criterion? Why may the grocery store want to increase the minimum support required for their analysis? What is the risk of increasing the minimum support required?
c. Using the list of rules from part b, consider the rule with the largest lift ratio that involves an Italian item. Interpret what this rule is saying about the relationship between the antecedent item set and consequent item set.
d. Interpret the support count of the item set involved in the rule with the largest lift ratio that involves an Italian item.

e. InterprettheconfidenceoftherulewiththelargestliftratiothatinvolvesanItalianitem.

f. Interpret the lift ratio of the rule with the largest lift ratio that involves an Italian item.
g. What insight can the grocery store obtain about its purchasers of the Italian fare?

Only solve E F G

1. Define inflation and discuss the differing impacts of “expected” vs. “unexpected inflation.” Which do you believe is the more important type of inflation the government should work to reduce? Explain.

2. What action can the Federal Reserve take to reduce inflation?

3. Using one of the tools available to the Federal Reserve, explain how the Fed would accomplish the action you listed in response to No. 2.

4. Assume the economy is currently operating at the natural rate of unemployment, what affects will the action you listed in response to No. 2 have in the short run on output, price level, and interest rates? Please use the AS/AD and Money Market diagrams to illustrate your answer.

5. Again, assume the economy is currently operating at the natural rate of unemployment, what affects will the action you listed in response to No. 2 have in the long run on output, price level, and interest rates? Please use the AS/AD and Money Market diagrams to illustrate your answer.

Describe a time when someone did not really listen to or understand a point you were trying to get across. Describe the actions you took to try to make them understand them your point. How do these actions apply to negotiations and sales? [200 words or more please and Thank you].