An individual has the utility function u = min (x, y). His income is $ 12.
Initially, the prices were px = 4 and py = 1, and the individual consumed the basket x = y = 2.4.
Then, px increases to $ 6 (py does not change), and the individual now consumes the basket
x = y = 1.71.
a) Calculate the compensatory variation of this price change.
b) Calculate the equivalent variation of this price change.
c) On the same graph, illustrate the initial basket, the final basket, the compensatory variation and the equivalent variation.

1.Assume that the heights of adult women are normally distributed with a mean height of 160 centimeters and the standard deviation is 8 centimeters.

What percentage of individuals have heights less than 160 centimeters?

2. Find the probability that a randomly selected individual has a height greater than 176 centimeters.

3. Find the probability that a randomly selected individual has a height less than 152 centimeters.

4. Can you determine the probability that a randomly selected individual has a height greater than 180 centimeters?

1)Which of the following describes a reason that firms may operate more efficiently than individual producers?

Limited liability increases a firm's access to credit

Transaction costs of production through the market exchange is greater than within the firm

All of these answers

2)

The behavior of potential buyers is represented by ___________ and the behavior of potential sellers is represented by __________.

the individual utility function; the production function

the individual utility function; the market supply function

the market demand function; the production function

the market demand function; the market supply function

Read the Article below

1. Briefly summarize the key point of the article, but DO NOT include any direct text from the article (i.e., don't quote or copy from the article), tell me in YOUR OWN words. This should be brief.

2. Explain how your article is connected to building a competitive advantage and five forces model assumptions. Explain what other businesses, or your employer, could learn from the key point(s) in this article.

Amazon's Competitive Advantage Isn't Cost Or Convenience, It's This

Competitive advantage as we know it, has changed. To stay relevant in today’s constantly changing competitive landscape requires the capacity to continually learn, evolve and grow into a better—more valuable—version of what you were yesterday. Competitive advantage today isn’t a matter of lowering costs—anybody can slash prices. It’s not a matter of hiring “better” people, although the human element is certainly a factor. It’s not solely a matter of corporate responsibility either, even though purpose is important. And it’s not a matter of a faster time-to-market despite the fact that failing fast informs sooner. No, competitive advantage is a matter of adaptability. Here’s why.

Apple

Originally a computer company, the $800 billion dollar tech giant has adapted its focus to include self-driving cars, augmented reality and even the payment space historically controlled by banks.

Google

The company that originally started as an online search engine built Android which now owns the majority of market share for mobile operating systems. It also ate the GPS navigation and mapping industries for breakfast, is working on internet-beaming balloons (what?!) as well as self-driving cars. Hey, why not?

Facebook

No longer “just” a social networking site but a technology powerhouse intent on creating augmented-reality glasses as well as ways to let you type with your brain (where was this when I was in school?)

Amazon

Amazon’s original focus was on selling books, and needless to say, they’ve adapted quite a bit. You can purchase anything—anything—through Amazon with the blink of an eye and have it delivered to your doorstep the next day. If that’s not convenience then I don’t know what is. Quite honestly, I don’t even know where to begin with Amazon because there’s pretty much nothing they don’t do. The point is, they’ve evolved this far because they value change and they value adaptability.

What do all of these companies have in common? Billions and billions of dollars--because they learned to adapt. They have built and sustained a competitive advantage because they learned to adapt.

That’s why the merger between Amazon and Whole Foods makes sense. Here you have two completely different companies fuzing together to forge not only a new alliance, but a new opportunity that, as a result, offers a new competitive advantage: options--a one-stop-shop for everything you need, now including organic produce.

However, adaptability isn't easy. Here are a couple things to remember when adapting to change:

Adapt through teams.

Aside from the psychological benefits of mutual support (misery loves company), teams are one of the best ways to effectuate long-lasting organizational change for a number of reasons. First, members learn to work together. Determining how work will get accomplished between Amazon and Whole Foods employees will be a challenge since each company has its own distinct cultural norms. The fastest way for people to learn how to work together, is to work together. Things don’t get any easier by ignoring them. If you want to move the needle—in anything—you’ve got to start moving. Period. Teams are no different.

One lesson we learned in the special operations community was the value of cross-pollinated teams. Meaning, we would take a member from one team and rotate him through another team, often to his dismay. What this did was reshape individual identity from one team to a collection of teams so that he had a wider panoramic view of the organization. He was able to bring with him the lessons learned from one team and share them with another which fortified the collective capacity of the organization.

Establish a new narrative.

One of the biggest challenges in any merger is redefining who you are—your organizational identity. The roots of identity run strong—especially in the case of Amazon and Whole Foods—which means there’ll be natural resistance to assuming a new one. For Whole Foods the challenge will be preserving its roots under the goliath-like shadow of Amazon.

It’ll be incumbent upon leaders to redefine “who we are” and why a new identity is important. This isn’t something to be taken lightly. In fact, it’s an extremely difficult challenge to reshape one’s personal belief system. Just imagine, as an Amazon or Whole Foods employee, everything by which you’ve defined yourself—the beliefs, values, how work gets accomplished—are going to change. At the very least, they’ll be challenged. This is a difficult concept to grasp let alone accept.

Communicating this new message will require two things: clarity and consistency. The message must be clear as to why things (i.e. culture, work processes) are changing because when people know why, they feel like they're part of the solution. Of course repetition is the mother of all learning so reinforcing this message consistently is the other piece of the puzzle. And I don’t mean hosting an all-hands every once-upon-a-time. A message of change and “newness” must be conveyed every day, in every meeting, and with each directive. Like I said, change isn’t easy.

Existing businesses who don’t proactively adapt to change will get bulldozed for those that will. It’s that simple. In today’s competitive environment, it’s the companies who willingly adapt to change who stay relevant.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffboss/2017/06/20/amazons-competitive-advantage-isnt-cost-or-convenience-its-this/#326649d04958

6 Insert a vertical lookup function in cell H5 to display the amount of down payment for the first client based on the membership type.

7 Insert a formula in cell I5 to calculate the balance due on the membership. Copy the formulas in columns H and I for the rest of the clients.

8 Insert the PMT function in cell J5 to calculate the first client’s monthly payment, using appropriate relative and absolute cell references. Copy the formula down the column.

9 Calculate totals for Annual Total, Total Due, Down Payment, Balance, and Monthly Payment on row 14.

Hirsch Company acquired equipment at the beginning of 2017 at a cost of $124,300. The equipment has a five-year life with no expected salvage value and is depreciated on a straight-line basis. At December 31, 2017, Hirsch compiled the following information related to this equipment:                    Expected future cash flows from use of the equipment    $    106,400       Present value of expected future cash flows from use of the equipment        90,700       Fair value (selling price less costs to dispose)        86,350           Assume that a U.S.–based company is issuing securities to foreign investors who require financial statements prepared in accordance with IFRS. Thus, adjustments to convert from U.S. GAAP to IFRS must be made. Ignore income taxes.     Required:      Prepare journal entries for this equipment for the years ending December 31, 2017, and December 31, 2018, under (1) U.S. GAAP and (2) IFRS.      Prepare the entry(ies) that Hirsch would make on the December 31, 2017, and December 31, 2018, conversion worksheets to convert U.S. GAAP balances to IFRS. Ignore the possibility of any additional impairment at the end of 2018.

The company’s profit and loss is subject to many risk factors, such as the price change of oil and foreign exchange rate fluctuations. The company will benefit US$900 for each 1 cent increase in the price per bbl of oil. As the market price of oil is quite volatile, the company is considering using some strategies to manage its risk exposure. One way to hedge these exposures is to use futures contracts. There are futures contracts traded in the COMEX division of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group. In your consulting report, please address the following questions: 1) Outline the potential financial risks and operational risks faced by Gemoil and explain these risks in details.

3. Using this information, compute the Cash Cycle for this company.

Cash Cycle = Days Sales Outstanding + Days Inventory – Payables Period

Questions

• What is the length of this company’s cash cycle? (Show us your work!)
• What information does this give you about the company’s need for cash?
• Do you feel that this company must seek out short-term financing? Please explain your response.
• Discuss whether Martin and Samantha should be concerned about their company’s cash cycle of 73 days.

We when run a hypothesis test, we are looking to verify a claim about a population parameter. Why is it important that we have a statistical tool to allow us to do this? For example, suppose that you were the quality control officer for a CPU manufacturer. Your job is to ensure that the CPUs your company makes meet certain performance standards so that when they are installed in iPhones they function properly and the phone company can truthfully claim that its phone will perform in certain ways. What would you do to verify that your CPUs were meeting both industry standards as well as the expectations of those companies that will purchase them for use in their products?