Suppose the United States economy is represented by the following equations:

Z = C + I + G            C = 100 +0.5Y_D                     T = 200                     I = 30

Y_D = Y - T                 G = 100

Suppose the Okun's law is given by:

u_t - u_t-1 = -0.4(g_yt - 3%)

a-) What is the output growth needed to result in reducing unemployment by 1% in a year.

b-) What is the output growth needed to reduce unemployment by 2% over the next 4 years.

c-) What is your interpretation of the 3% in Okun's law above?

You have just been elected president of the United States, and the present Chair of the Federal Reserve Board has resigned. You need to appoint a new person to this position, as well as a person to chair your Council of Economic Advisers. Using your knowledge of macroeconomics, identify the personal characteristics and the views on macro theory and policy you would want your appointees to have and implement.   Remember, the economic health of the entire nation and solution to keeping the economy growing will be impacted by this decision.

As you know, during the Great Recession, the Fed proposed a number of "bail out" measures to address the “great recession”. In the second part of your paper, indicate why or why not you would recommend that your new appointee use similar measures if this situation arises again. Should the Fed have a bond-buying program? Identify any new policies that you would like your candidate to follow.

CASE 2. ELASTICITY

In the United States, taxes are imposed on cigarettes at the state level. As a result, there are large differences among states. As of July 1, 2010, three states had cigarette taxes in excess of $3.00 per pack: Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Washington. Seven more had rates between $2.00 and $3.00 (including the District of Columbia). Missouri had the lowest rate among the 50 states at $0.17 a pack. The following article describes a proposal to raise taxes by $1.00 per pack in the state of Washington. We would expect an increase in the tax on cigarettes to increase their price to consumers. An interesting question from the point of view of health and tax revenue is how much a price increase lowers demand. One of the commentators in the article claims that increasing cigarette prices by 10 percent reduces youth smokers by 6–7 percent; this is an implied demand elasticity of –0.6 (6%/10%). How do you think this compares to what we would expect from adult smokers? Many people would argue that because more young people are new smokers and because they have less money than adults, their demand for cigarettes would be more elastic. On the other hand, if peer pressure favors smoking, this could lower demand elasticity for youths. One problem that states face as they increase their cigarette taxes is that people will seek cigarette substitutes from cheaper areas. In Washington, the state pressured Indian tribes to raise the tribal tax rate on cigarettes to the overall state level. By making these substitutes to state-taxed cigarettes more expensive, the loss of customers in response to the state tax increase would be less.

Question: Analyze the given case and find that who Are the Elastic Smokers? Provide justification to you answer.

FoxMeyer was the fifth largest drug wholesaler in the United States (1995) with annual sales of about 5 billion US$ and daily shipments of over 500,000 items. In order to take advantages of new technology, FoxMeyer started a 100 Million dollar project to implement SAP’s R/3 ERP system in 1993. But the implementation was a disaster for FoxMeyer. Four years later, the pharmaceutical giant filed for bankruptcy. Also, it sued SAP and Anderson Consulting, claiming them to be responsible for the failure of the ERP system.

1. Please identify the process component of IS in this case. Are there any problems with the process component of the ERP problem? Please explain.

Generally speaking, if you talk about how the ERP system was implemented and the problem with it, you will get 0 on this question.

2. ) Please identify the structural component of IS in this case. Are there any problems with the structure component of the ERP problem? Please explain.

Explain the why, Why did these things happen?

According to Transparency International, the United States is the least corrupt country in the world.

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Question 2 (4 points)

If a company does not hold any patents, then they do not have any intellectual property issue to deal with abroad.

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Question 3 (4 points)

While increased regional economic integration means that markets that were once protected and not open to foreign trade and investment are increasingly opening, it also means both domestic and foreign companies will

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Question 4 (4 points)

If a U.S. company files and receives a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, they do not have to file for patent and other intellectual property protection in other countries.

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Question 5 (4 points)

When entering international partnership agreements (i.e., distribution or sales rep agreements), those non-U.S. partners are not subject to U.S. laws against corruption, as long as they are not directly employed by the U.S. company.

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Question 6 (4 points)

A primary challenge that Netshoes.com faced and corrected was:

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Save

Question 7 (4 points)

When building websites, most languages will appear the same within website templates

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Question 8 (4 points)

A common challenge to rural market development, particularly in developing countries, is

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Question 9 (4 points)

Arcelik held a significant amount of market share domestically in Turkey. As a result, this brand recognition was a strength when they entered other markets, as they were well known globally.

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Question 10 (4 points)

A primary method company use to market their products abroad, build relationships and meet potential new business partners is:

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Among the benefits offered by corporations, at least in the United States, is health insurance. One explanation for why corporations offer such insurance is that this benefit is tax favored: Companies can compensate employees with health-insurance benefits that are treated as nontaxable income. Also, health care providers and insurers (such as Blue Shield) have historically offered better rates to employers for their employees than to individuals who ask for the same coverage. Why is this?

The SBD Dauntless was a dive-bomber that was used by the United States Navy during World War II. Consider one such aircraft flying with a velocity of 103 m/s at an angle θ below the horizontal. The aircraft releases a bomb when its altitude is 2.15 km above sea level. At the point when the bomb is released, the magnitude of the displacement from the bomb to its target at sea level is 2.68 km. What is the angle θ? (Give your answer in degrees. Consider θ to be a positive value, measured downward from the horizontal axis.)

_________ ° downward from the horizontal

A company whose operations (and costs) are located in the United States has most of its sales in the United Kingdom. The company’s managers think the main effect on the pound-dollar rate will be Brexit but there are three possible scenarios: a messy Brexit causes a sharp depreciation of the pound, a post-Brexit investment boom causes an appreciation of the pound, or a delay of Brexit causes the pound-dollar rate to remain stable. a) Which of the three scenarios would be costly to the company? Which would be advantageous? Explain briefly. b) The manager considers the Brexit delay to be the most likely and the Brexit scenario advantageous to the company to be very unlikely. She wants to hedge against the scenario that is costly to the company. Under these circumstances, would futures or options be a better way to hedge? Why is the fact that the advantageous scenario is unlikely relevant to the decision?

Comcast is the largest cable provider in the United States. This activity is important because despite its impressive power, influence, and politics, Comcast failed to effectively influence stakeholders including customers, employees, regulators, networks, and other content providers.

The goal of this activity is to apply the knowledge of OB in order to understand why Comcast failed in its bid to acquire Time Warner, and allow you to provide realistic solutions for future acquisition attempts.

Read the case about Comcast’s failure to influence key stakeholders. Then, using the 3-step problem-solving approach, answer the questions that follow.

Like many companies in the telecom industry, Comcast has chosen to grow by buying competitors. After acquiring AT&T’s Internet business in 2001, the company has remained on the acquisition train ever since. Its largest purchase to date was NBC Universal in 2011 for $18 billion, but its most notable was its thwarted 2015 attempt to buy Time Warner for $45 billion. Despite its impressive power, influence, and politics, Comcast failed to effectively influence stakeholders including customers, employees, regulators, networks, and other content providers. More than 300,000 comments were filed with the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) by customers who opposed the merger. For perspective, the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile drew just over 40,000 comments.¹

Why Bother in the First Place?

Comcast is the largest cable provider in the United States despite having the worst customer satisfaction ratings in its industry. It has twice earned the dubious distinction of being the “Worst Company in America,” according to Consumer Reports’ customer satisfaction arm. Comcast’s customer service was so poor as to be considered legendary. And its reputation with various networks and cable channels such as Discovery, Disney, 20th Century Fox, and the NFL Network had been declining for years.² These partners are in effect customers, and Comcast has pressured them to pay higher fees to distribute their content through its cables.³

Industry trends were affecting Comcast’s current performance and its future prospects. Consumers have been cutting the cable and instead accessing their content via streaming alternatives such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. Netflix alone accounts for one-third of all Internet traffic. But apparently believing that being No. 1 was not enough, Comcast’s leaders decided that acquiring Time Warner would enable them to better serve existing and new customers, as well as to defend against increasingly diverse competition from Google, Dish Network, and others.⁴

Attempts to Influence the Players

Comcast was determined and resourceful in its attempt to make things go its way. A major part of its efforts focused on Washington, D.C., since no merger of that size goes through without regulatory approval. Comcast employs a force of more than 100 lobbyists, and its $17 million annual lobbying budget is second only to Google’s.⁵ Lobbying efforts were largely intended to influence officials in the FCC and Department of Justice (DOJ), the regulators who would ultimately decide how the merger would affect competition and consumer choice, and who would either block it or allow it to proceed. Members of these government departments were buried in data, wined and dined, and presented with dazzling arguments highlighting the potential benefits of the merger. But Comcast did not stop there. CEO Brian Roberts courted President Obama, golfing with him on Martha’s Vineyard. And Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen hosted three fund-raisers for the president at his home, raising more than $10 million for the Democratic party.⁶ Roberts and Cohen presumably thought that associating with key players in the government would win them favor with regulators and members of Congress who might influence the merger and other policies favorable to Comcast.

For its part, the company argued that a merger of the two largest players wouldn’t stifle competition but instead allow them to provide more services to more customers. For instance, it currently provides Internet services to low-income and rural residents. Combining with Time Warner, the company claimed, would enable it to serve even more of these customers.⁷

The Other Side and Ultimate Outcome

Ultimately, the money, the relationships, the lobbyists’ arguments, and the pressure failed to work. Its opponents used many of the same bases of power, influence, and political tactics to argue against the merger that Comcast used to promote it, and the company withdrew its bid for Time Warner. It didn’t help that Comcast already had such a poor reputation with many of the parties from whom it needed support. It is noteworthy that in mid-2016 Charter Communications successfully acquired Time Warner in a merger worth $79 billion.⁸

Assume you are CEO Roberts, and you want to successfully acquire a large competitor in the future. Drawing on what you learned from the Time Warner experience, what would you do now to improve your chances?

Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to OB

Step 1: Define the problem.Step 2: Identify causes of the problem by using material from this chapter, which has been summarized in the Organizing Framework for Chapter 12 and is shown in Figure 12.9. Causes will tend to show up in either the Inputs box or the Processes box.Step 3: Make your recommendations for solving the problem. Consider whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recommendation is desirable and feasible?