The Good’n’Fresh Grocery Store has two checkout lanes and four employees. Employees are equally skilled, and all are able to either operate a register (checkers) or bag groceries (baggers). The store owner assigns one checker and one bagger to each lane. A lane with a checker and a bagger can check out 41 customers per hour. A lane with a checker only can check out 25 customers per hour.


a. In terms of customers checked out per hour, what are total output and average labor productivity for the Good’n’Fresh Grocery Store?

Instructions: Enter your response for total output as a whole number and round your response for average productivity to one decimal place.

Total output:    customers per hour.

Average productivity:    customers per hour, per worker

b.  The owner adds a third checkout lane and register. Assuming that no employees are added, what is the best way to reallocate the workers to tasks?

• Two lanes with only checkers and one lane with a checker and a bagger.

• Two lanes with a checker and bagger and one lane left empty.

Instructions: Enter your response for total output as a whole number and round your response for average productivity to one decimal place.

What are total output and average labor productivity (in terms of customers checked out per hour) now?

Total output:    customers per hour

Average productivity:    customers per hour, per worker

c. The owner adds a fourth checkout lane and register. Assuming that no employees are added, what is the best way to reallocate the workers to tasks?
     

• Two lanes with one checker and one bagger each.

• Do not use the fourth lane.

• Four lanes with checkers only.

Instructions: Enter your response for total output as a whole number and round your response for average productivity to one decimal place.

Total output:    customers per hour

Average productivity:    customers per hour

     
The owner adds a fifth checkout lane and register. Assuming that no employees are added, what is the best way to reallocate the workers to tasks?

• Two lanes with only checkers and one lane with a checker and a bagger.

• Do not use the fifth lane.

• Two lanes with one checker and one bagger at each.

Do you observe diminishing returns to capital in this example?

• No, adding all five lanes will increase output.

• Yes, adding a fourth lane will not increase output

• Yes, adding a fifth lane will not increase output.

• Yes, adding a third lane will not increase output

Many nations, including the U.S., use various tools to restrict trade. What kind of arguments can you imagine for pursuing such policies? Are these valid arguments? Please support your answer.

What are the salient features of the Kyoto protocol? To what extent can the Paris agreement on climate change benefit from the lessons learnt from the Kyoto protocol? Discuss.

Part A: List the basic steps in strategic planning. Part B: Briefly discuss the needs, benefits, and approaches of the strategic planning process for today’s MNC (Multinational Corporations

Discuss why normal profits are the status quo in a competitive market in the long run: use the competitive market response to change on demand for a commodity to illustrate aspects of your discussion.

For this Discussion, you are required to identify and review any article or journal dealing with why companies are no longer finding China a particularly attractive place today for manufacturing? Apart from the Trade War with the United States, are there any other reasons? You must give at least five reasons for your answer? How can the US take advantage of this changing economic and manufacturing environment of China to attract manufacturing back to the US? Give at least three (3) reasons for your answer.

Compare and contract the CISG with the UCC - what is each and what does each apply to with respect to international law and the sale of goods internationally?

What are the similarities between CARES act and TARP in the Great Recession?

1.Antitrust Policy and Regulation – Antitrust policies such as the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 are intended to reduce market power and promote pure competition. How do consumers benefit from such policies? Rationalize your answers.

2. Agriculture: Economics and Policy – Just as soda pop taxes can impact a market, how can agricultural subsidies affect a market? Justify your response.

9. The broiler chicken market comprises virtually all chicken consumed in the United States. Historically, broiler chicken was priced on a boom-and-bust cycle — when prices for chicken went up, so did supply; then prices would fall. Suppliers and retailers argue that they paid too much for chicken—a burden that has likely been felt by consumers, too. But then, as Watts puts it, “it’s been boom for the past 10 years or so.” Plaintiffs in these lawsuits allege that starting in 2008, prices for chicken suddenly stabilized and began to rise, even as the inputs those companies sold to farmers fell. They allege that this stabilization was a result of collusion among the companies, made possible in part by a piece of database software called Agri Stats. The first lawsuit brought against the processors was a class action filed by a food wholesaler, Maplevale Farms, in September 2016. That suit alleged that from 2008 onward, Tyson and Pilgrim’s Pride coordinated their efforts to reduce their broiler stock and forced a “nearly 50 percent increase in Broiler wholesale prices since 2008, despite input costs (primarily corn and soybeans) falling roughly 20 percent to 23 percent over the same time period.” Maplevale claimed that consequently, it paid inflated prices for chicken over the course of several years. Through Agri Stats, poultry companies can share information about production numbers, bird sizes, financial returns, and more. The database company gathers information from 95 percent of poultry processors and tracks 22 million birds a day. Companies can then use this information, according to farmers, retailers, and distributors, to set a higher price for their products. Assume extreme consolidation in the poultry processing sector precipitated these and other allegations of anticompetitive conduct among the top companies. Tyson and Pilgrim’s Pride alone control 60 percent of the market. Sanderson Farms, Perdue, and Koch Foods control another 25 percent.

a. The chicken companies are engaging in what type of economic behavior? ( Characteristic of this market structure. )(4 pts)

b. This behavior is characteristic of what market structure? Draw the graph for this market structure or describe it. (Put your answer on the answer sheet ) ( 8 pts)

a. Show, stating all required assumptions, that the growth rate of efficiency in any

economy can be calculated as (where z = Z/L) (In malthusian economy)

gA = gy - agk - cgz

b. Show that the result in part (a) above implies that the growth rate of efficiency in

Malthusian economies over the long run is given by

gA = cgN

where c is the share of land rents in all incomes, and gN is the population growth rate.

10. Consider a market in which there is a monopoly manufacturer and a mo nopoly retailer. The manufacturer M makes an input for a marginal cost of 20 per unit. This input is sold to the retailer R, who then sells to the final goods market (to the end user). The retailer has no costs of its own (other than any price charged for the input by M). The final market demand is given by P = 200 – q. Assume that both firms act to maximise their own profit (and price discrimination is not feasible). The Manufacturer charges the Retailer t per unit per unit, and the retailer charges the fi nal consumers pR (and sells quantity qR). What is the loss from the two firms acting like separate profit maximisers (compared with the profit maximising outcome)?

a. 75

b. 125

c. 250

d. 375

*e. None of the above