Four of the five commissioners for the Federal Trade Commission were working late one evening in their Washington, D. C. offices. The four were catching up on their electronic mail. The four soon discovered each others' presence on electronic mail. One commissioner wrote to the other three, "Let's get some business done so long as we're all here. We could resolve that unfair competition case that's pending for next month. We can iron out our differences via e-mail." The electronic exchanges of the commissioners would: a. be protected because they are internal agency actions. b. not be a meeting without some staff members present. c. be considered law enforcement issues and would be protected from open-meeting laws. d. violate the Government in the Sunshine Act open meeting laws.

Consider a two-firm industry. firm 1 (the incumbent) chooses a level of output q1. firm 2 (the potential entrant) observes q1 and then chooses its level of output q2. the demand for the product is p = 100 - q, where q is the total output sold by the two firms which equals q1 +q2. assume that the marginal cost of each firm is zero. a) find the subgame perfect equilibrium levels of q1 and q2 keeping in mind that firm 1 chooses q1 first and firm 2 observes q1 and chooses its q2. find the profits of the two firms-? 1 and ? 2- in the subgame perfect equilibrium. how do these numbers differ from the cournot equilibrium? b) for what level of q1 would firm 2 be deterred from entering? would a rational firm 1 have an incentive to choose this level of q1? which entry condition does this market have: blockaded, deterred, or accommodated? now suppose that firm 2 has to incur a fixed cost of entry, f > 0. c) for what values of f will entry be blockaded? d) find out the entry deterring level of q1, denoted by q1b, as a function of f. next, derive the expression for firm 1

Richardson hired j. c. flood company, a plumbing contractor, to correct a stoppage in the sewer line of her house. the plumbing company's 'snake' device, used to clear the line leading to the main sewer, became caught in the underground line. to release it, the company excavated a portion of the sewer line in richardson's backyard. in the process, the company discovered numerous leaks in a rusty, defective water pipe that ran parallel with the sewer line. to meet public regulations, the water pipe, of a type no longer approved for such service, had to be replaced either then or later, when the yard would have to be excavated again. the plumbing company proceeded to repair the water pipe. though richardson inspected the company's work daily and did not express any objection to the extra work involved in replacing the water pipe, she refused to pay any part of the total bill after the company completed the entire operation. j. c. flood company then sued richardson for the costs of labor and material it had furnished. (c) for what, if anything, should richardson be liable? explain."

The management of a supermarket wants to adopt a new promotional policy of giving a free gift to every customer who spends > a certain amount per visit at this supermarket. the expectation of the management is that after this promotional policy is advertised, the expenditures for all customers at this supermarket will be normally distributed with a mean of $95 and a standard deviation of $20. if the management wants to give free gifts to at most 10% of the customers, what should the amount be above which a customer would receive a free gift?