Although the use of debt provides tax benefits to the firm, debt also puts pressure on the firm to: I) meet interest and principal payments, which if not met can put the company into financial distress; II) make dividend payments, which if not met can put the company into financial distress; III) meet both interest and dividend payments, which when met increase the firm cash flow; IV) meet increased tax payments, thereby increasing firm value

If delta airlines were to significantly change its fare structure and flight schedule to enhance its competitive position in response to aggressive price cutting by southwest airlines, this would be an example ofanswers: explicit collusion. tacit collusion. competitive dynamics. a harvest strategy.

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

Define the marginal rate of substitution between two goods (x and y). if a consumer’s preferences are given by u(x, y) = x3/4y1/4, compute the consumer’s marginal rate of substitution as a function of x and y. calculate the mrs if the consumer has chosen to consumer 48 units of x and 16 units of y. show your work. (use the back of the page if necessary.