Emma is ready to open a new checking account and is trying to decide between three banks using the chart below: bank r bank s bank t no monthly fees if balance stays above $300, otherwise $7 per month no monthly fees if check card is used more than 6 times per month, otherwise $10 monthly fee $5 monthly fee no minimum balance $25 minimum balance no minimum balance online banking services online banking services no online banking options non-bank r atm fee - $2.00 per transaction non-bank s atm fee - $1.50 per transaction non-bank t atm fee - $2.00 per transaction emma usually has about $1000 in her account at any given time during the month. she usually visits the atm twice a week and is interested in banking online options. bank r has 10 atms within a 5 mile radius of emma’s home. bank s has 1 atm 10 miles from emma’s work. which bank should she choose? a. bank r b. bank s c. bank t d. bank r and s

When randy, a general manager of a national retailer, moved to a different store in his company that was having difficulty, he knew that sales were low and after talking to his employees, he found morale was also low. at first randy thought attitudes were poor due to low sales, but after working closely with employees, he realized that the poor attitudes were actually the cause of poor sales. randy was able to discover the cause of the problem by utilizing skills.

3. saving two consumers, larry and jeff, have utility functions defined over the two periods of their lives: middle age (period zero) and retirement (period 1). they have the same income in period 0 of m dollars and they will not earn income in period 1. the interest rate they face is r. larry’s and jeff’s utility functions are as follow. = 0.5 + 0.5 and = 0.5 + 0.5 for each person is between zero and one and represents each consumer’s temporal discount econ 340: intermediate microeconomics. ben van kammen: purdue university. rate. a. write the budget constraint that applies to both jeff and larry in terms of consumption in each period and ), interest rate, and m. b. what is larry’s and what is jeff’s marginal rate of intertemporal substitution? c. what is the slope of the budget constraint? d. write each consumer’s condition for lifetime utility maximization. e. re-arrange the conditions from part (d) to solve for the ratio, . f. if > which consumer will save more of his middle age income? g. if > 1 1+ , in which period will larry consume more: = 0 or = 1?

Suppose that fixed costs for a firm in the automobile industry (start-up costs of factories, capital equipment, and so on) are $5 billion and that variable costs are equal to $17,000 per finished automobile. because more firms increase competition in the market, the market price falls as more firms enter an automobile market, or specifically, , where n represents the number of firms in a market. assume that the initial size of the u. s. and the european automobile markets are 300 million and 533 million people, respectively. a. calculate the equilibrium number of firms in the u. s. and european automobile markets without trade. b. what is the equilibrium price of automobiles in the united states and europe if the automobile industry is closed to foreign trade? c. now suppose that the united states decides on free trade in automobiles with europe. the trade agreement with the europeans adds 533 million consumers to the automobile market, in addition to the 300 million in the united states. how many automobile firms will there be in the united states and europe combined? what will be the new equilibrium price of automobiles? d. why are prices in the united states different in (c) and (b)? are consumers better off with free trade? in what ways?