Why do interest rates follow the business cycle? during a recession, the demand for goods and services is lower, businesses borrow more, and as a result the economy slows down and the interest rates decline. during an expansion, there is downward pressure on interest rates as businesses begin to grow and borrow more money. interest rates tend rise during economic expansion and decline during recessions. typically, the fed tightens credit to stimulate the economy, which puts further downward pressure on interest rates.

Consider the local telephone company, a natural monopoly. the following graph shows the monthly demand curve for phone services and the company’s marginal revenue (mr), marginal cost (mc), and average total cost (atc) curves. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 price (dollars per subscription) quantity (thousands of subscriptions) d mr mc atc 8, 60 suppose that the government has decided not to regulate this industry, and the firm is free to maximize profits, without constraints. complete the first row of the following table. pricing mechanism short run long-run decision quantity price profit (subscriptions) (dollars per subscription) profit maximization marginal-cost pricing average-cost pricing suppose that the government forces the monopolist to set the price equal to marginal cost. complete the second row of the previous table. suppose that the government forces the monopolist to set the price equal to average total cost. complete the third row of the previous table. under average-cost pricing, the government will raise the price of output whenever a firm’s costs increase, and lower the price whenever a firm’s costs decrease. over time, under the average-cost pricing policy, what will the local telephone company most likely do

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An employer who is considering hiring eva has asked donna, eva’s former supervisor, for a report on eva. in truth, eva’s work for donna has been only average. however, eva is donna’s friend, and donna knows that eva probably will not get the job if she says anything negative about eva, and donna knows that eva desperately needs the job. further, donna knows that if the situation were reversed, she would not want eva to mention her deficiencies. nevertheless, it has been donna’s policy to reveal the deficiencies of employees when she has been asked for references by employers, and she knows that some of eva’s faults may be bothersome to this particular employer. finally, this employer has leveled with donna in the past when donna has asked for a report on people who have worked for him. should donna reveal deficiencies in eva’s past performance? (remember to use one of the three moral theories acceptable for this test to solve this dilemma. any discussion of any personal opinion, religious perspective, or theory other than the moral theories acceptable for this test will result in a score of "0" for this question.)