Natural rate of unemployment:

a) Suppose that Congress passes legislation making it more difficult for firms to fire workers. (An example is a law requiring several months of severance pay for fired workers.) If this legislation reduces the rate of job separation without affecting the rate of job finding, how would the natural rate of unemployment change?
b) Do you think it’s plausible that the legislation would not affect the job finding rate? Briefly explain why or why not.
c) This question is actually more typical of policy debates in Europe than in the U. S. For example, it’s notoriously difficult for firms to fire workers in many European countries. How might this be a factor in the higher natural rate of unemployment that is often estimated for those countries?

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After the 2008 recession, the amount of reserves in the us banking system increased. because of federal reserve actions, required reserves increased from $44 billion to $60 billion. however, banks started holding more reserves than required. by january 2009, banks were holding $900 billion in excess reserves. the federal reserve started paying interest on the excess reserves that the banks held. what possible impact will these unused reserves have on the economy?

Zachary company produces commercial gardening equipment. since production is highly automated, the company allocates its overhead costs to product lines using activity-based costing. the costs and cost drivers associated with the four overhead activity cost pools follow: activities unit level batch level product level facility level cost $ 64,800 $ 27,730 $ 15,000 $ 154,000 cost driver 2,400 labor hrs. 47 setups percentage of use 11,000 units production of 780 sets of cutting shears, one of the company’s 20 products, took 240 labor hours and 7 setups and consumed 15 percent of the product-sustaining activities. required: (a) had the company used labor hours as a company wide allocation base, how much overhead would it have allocated to the cutting shears? (b) how much overhead is allocated to the cutting shears using activity-based costing? (c) compute the overhead cost per unit for cutting shears first using activity-based costing and then using direct labor hours for allocation if 780 units are produced. if direct product costs are $150 and the product is priced at 30 percent above cost for what price would the product sell under each allocation system? (d) assuming that activity-based costing provides a more accurate estimate of cost, indicate whether the cutting shears would be over- or underpriced if direct labor hours are used as an allocation base. explain how over-or undercosting can affect vaulker's profitability. (e) comment on the validity of using the allocated facility-level cost in the pricing decision. should other costs be considered in a cost- plus pricing decision? if so, which ones? what costs would you include if you were trying to decide whether to accept a special order?