Dolphins in Backwater Bay are being monitored to ensure that their population is healthy and growing. Use Microsoft Excel's =TREND and =SLOPE functions and the following data to calculate your answer to the questions: Year 2010 = Population 0 ; 2011 = 400 ; 2012 = 1000 ; 2013 = 3200 ; 2014 = 7000 ; 2015 = 9400. a) Given the data above, and assuming a stable environment, what will the population be in the year 2018? (rounded to the nearest whole number, no commas). 13246 b) How fast is their population growing per year? (rounded to the nearest whole number, no commas) 1663

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