Ashford Bus 640 Entire Course *managerial Economics* New Syllabus 2013

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ASHFORD BUS 640 Entire Course *Managerial Economics* New Syllabus 2013

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ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 1 Economics of Risk and Uncertainty Applied Problems

ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 1 DQ 1 Firm Objectives
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 1 DQ 2 Decision Making Under Uncertainty
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 2 Consumer Demand Analysis and Estimation Applied Problems
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 2 DQ 1 Marginal Rate of Substitution
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 2 DQ 2 Demand Elasticity
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 3 DQ 1 Relevant Costs
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 3 DQ 2 Contribution Analysis
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 3 Production Cost Analysis and Estimation Applied Problems
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 4 DQ 1 Strategic Behavior Oligopolies
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 4 DQ 2 Local Market Power
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 4 Journal Economics in the Current News
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 4 Market Structures and Pricing Decisions Applied Problems
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 5 DQ 1 Good Will in Price Bidding
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 5 DQ 2 New Product Introduction
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 5 Price Quotes and Pricing Decisions Applied Problems
ASHFORD BUS 640 Week 6 DQ 1 Game

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BUS 640 Week 1 Assignment Economics of Risk and Uncertainty Applied Problems

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Week 1 Assignment
Economics of Risk and Uncertainty Applied Problems. Please, complete the following 3 applied problems in a Word or Excel document. Show all your calculations and explain your results. Submit your assignment in the drop box by using the Assignment Submission button.
1. A generous university benefactor has agreed to donate a large amount of money for student scholarships. The money can be provided in one lump-sum of $10mln, or in parts, where $5.5mln can be provided in year 1, and another $5.5mln can be provided in year 2. Assuming the opportunity interest rate is 6%, what is the present value of the second alternative? Which of the two alternatives should be chosen and why?
How would your decision change if the opportunity interest rate was 12%? Please, show all your calculations.
2. Volkswagen is considering opening an Assembly Plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the production of its 2012 Passat, tailored for the US market. The CEO of the company is considering two

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BUS 640 Week 1 DQ 1 Firm Objectives

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DQ 1
Firm Objectives. Why do some business firms pursue a triple-bottom-line outcome while others focus only on profit maximization? Please, use a real company example to illustrate your points

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BUS 640 Week 1 DQ 2 Decision Making Under Uncertainty

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DQ 2
Decision Making Under Uncertainty. To save on gasoline expenses, Edith and Mathew agreed to carpool together for traveling to and from work. Edith preferred to travel on I-20 highway as it was usually the fastest, taking 25 minutes in the absence of traffic delays. Mathew pointed out that traffic jams on the highway can lead to long delays making the trip 45 minutes. He preferred to travel along Shea Boulevard, which was longer (35 minutes), but rarely had traffic jams. Edith agreed that in case of traffic jams, Shea Boulevard was a reasonable alternative. Neither of them knows the state of the highway ahead of time.
After driving to work on the I-20 highway for 1 month (20 workdays), they found the highway to be jammed 3 times. Assuming that this month is a good representation of all months ahead, should Edith and Mathew continue to use the highway for traveling to work?
How would you conclusion change for the winter months, if bad weather makes it likely for traffic jams on the

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BUS 640 Week 2 Assignment Consumer Demand Analysis and Estimation

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Week 2 Assignment
Consumer Demand Analysis and Estimation Applied Problems. Please, complete the following 3 applied problems in a Word or Excel document. Show all your calculations and explain your results. Submit your assignment in the drop box by using the Assignment Submission button.
1. Roshima is researching universities where she could study for her MBA degree. She is considering 3 major attributes that she considers important in her choice: ranking, price, and location. The value she places on each attribute, however, differs according to whether she remains full-time employed during her studies or quits her job and focuses on her degree. If she continues to work full time and takes all her courses online, then ranking is the most important attribute, twice as important as price and three times as important as location. If she quits her job and attends school full time, then location becomes three times as important as ranking and twice as important as price. She is considering

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BUS 640 Week 2 DQ 1 Marginal Rate of Substitution

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DQ 1
Marginal Rate of Substitution. What is the marginal rate of substitution (MRS) and why does it diminish as the consumer substitutes one product for another? Use examples to illustrate

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BUS 640 Week 2 DQ 2 Demand Elasticity

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DQ 2
Demand Elasticity. Please, read the article Hainer, R. (2010), provided in the required readings section for this week. The tobacco industry is a prime example to consider when talking about price elasticity of demand. While nicotine use can be addictive for many users, it is not addictive for the so-called "social smokers".
What can we say about the price elasticity of demand for nicotine products (such as cigarettes, pipes, tobacco) in the group of nicotine addicted users, versus the group of "social smokers"? Can we say whose demand is likely to be more elastic? Why?

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BUS 640 Week 3 Assignment Production Cost Analysis and Estimation

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Week 3 Assignment
Production Cost Analysis and Estimation Applied Problems. Please, complete the following 3 applied problems in a Word or Excel document. Show all your calculations and explain your results. Submit your assignment in the drop box by using the Assignment Submission button.
1. Jennifer Trucking Company operates a large rig transportation business in Texas that transports locally grown vegetables to San Diego, California. The company owns 5 large rigs and hires local drivers paid fixed salaries monthly, regardless of the number of trips or tons of cargo that each driver transports each month. The below table presents details about the number of drivers and the total cargo transported by the company at different staff levels.
a. Which inputs are fixed and which are variable in the production function of Jennifer Trucking Company? Over what ranges do there appear to be increasing, constant and/or diminishing returns to the number of drivers employed?
b. What number of dri

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BUS 640 Week 3 DQ 1 Relevant Costs

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DQ 1
Relevant Costs. Two partners own together a small landscaping business in North Carolina, called Summer Lawn Care. They have been specializing in summer grass seeding, installation, and maintenance. Recently, the partners acquired special technology and know-how for winter grass installations and maintenance. They also added a tree cutting service as recent storms in the area had caused demand for this service to soar. One of the partners insists that the name of the business should change to Lawn and Tree Care, so that it better reflects the range of services and, thus, generates more customer interest, and thus contracts. The second partner wants to keep the old name and argues, “We have already paid for business cards, vehicle paint, signage, and ads in Yellow Pages”. Evaluate the arguments of the two partners. Explain and illustrate their points by identifying the relevant and irrelevant costs for this decision.

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BUS 640 Week 3 DQ 2 Contribution Analysis

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DQ 2
Contribution Analysis. Explain what is meant by “contribution analysis”. Carefully define the term and provide examples to illustrate it.

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BUS 640 Week 4 Assignment Market Structures and Pricing Decisions

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Week 4 Assignment
Market Structures and Pricing Decisions Applied Problems. Please, complete the following 2 applied problems in a Word or Excel document. Show all your calculations and explain your results. Submit your assignment in the drop box by using the Assignment Submission button.
A small business which produces plastic vacuum-suction covers for round household dishes has a monopoly that is protected by a utility patent. The market demand curve for this product is estimated to be: – 25P where Q is the number of plate covers per year and P is in dollars. Cost estimation processes have determined that the firm’s cost function is represented by + 2500Q -0.25*Q2.
(i) What is the profit-maximizing price and output level? Solve this algebraically for equilibrium P and Q and also plot the MC, D and MR curves and illustrate the equilibrium point.
(ii) What profit do you expect that the firm will make in the first year?
(iii) Do you expect this profit level to continue in subsequent yea

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BUS 640 Week 4 DQ 1 Strategic Behavior Oligopolies

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DQ 1
Strategic Behavior Oligopolies. An interesting example of strategic behavior comes from a 1997 article about Microsoft’s investment in Apple (New Straits Times, 1997). The article is included in the Required Readings list. Facing tough anti-trust scrutiny from government agencies, Microsoft provided financial support to Apple in order to ensure Apple’s survival and, therefore, to ensure that competitiveness in the industry remains. Moreover, the partnership with Apple provided an additional market for Microsoft’s products – the MS Office and the IE products were to be bundled with the MAC OS as one of the conditions for this financing. Discuss this case in the context of market structure and strategic behavior. What market structure do these firms operate in? Why did Microsoft need to preserve competitiveness in the industry? What was Microsoft afraid of in the event that Apple did not survive?

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BUS 640 Week 4 DQ 2 Local Market Power

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DQ 2
Local Market Power. Bulls Eye department store specializes in the sales of discounted clothing, shoes, household items, etc. similar to the offerings at a regular Walmart or Target. Bulls Eye is the only department store in Show Low and the nearest other discount retailer is Target, located 49 miles away in Eagar. Bulls Eye, therefore, has some market power in its local area. Despite having some market power, Bulls Eye is currently suffering losses. An analyst at Bulls Eye is recommending to the manager to raise prices, so that profitability can be improved. The manager is unsure of this strategy as recent data points to increasing numbers of individuals shopping more and more. What are the pros and cons of raising the prices at Bulls Eye and would that strategy be profitable?

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BUS 640 Week 5 Assignment Price Quotes and Pricing Decisions

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Week 5 Assignment
Price Quotes and Pricing Decisions Applied Problems. Please, complete the following 3 applied problems in a Word or Excel document. Show all your calculations and explain your results. Submit your assignment in the drop box by using the Assignment Submission button.
Maxim Motronics A.G. have been marketing a new product in Europe that has achieved notable market success and it now plans to introduce this product into the United States market. The product is an electronic device that is mounted in the rear window of passenger cars and allows the driver of one vehicle to have a spoken message converted to text and scrolled across the display panel to be read by occupants of a following vehicle. This new product can utilize the hands-free telephone microphone already installed in many new vehicles, or provides this as free accessory. Maxim expects that demand will be slow at first but will pick up quickly as automobile accessory stores begin to stock the product and as w

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BUS 640 Week 5 DQ 1 Good Will in Price Bidding

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DQ 1
Good Will in Price Bidding. Sometimes, a bidder on a work contract may bid lower than what would maximize his/her profit from the contract and the reason for that is to create goodwill (to increase expected future business from the buyer). How would you value the goodwill that is obtained in this way?

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BUS 640 Week 5 DQ 2 New Product Introduction

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DQ 2
New Product Introduction. Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Germany owns the Alka-Seltzer, which was launched in 1931 and was meant for relief of minor aches, pains, inflammation, fever, headache, heartburn, sour stomach, indigestion, and hangovers. The Alka-Seltzer Plus was a spin-off of the original medicine, meant to relieve colds and flu.
The company has recently introduced a new and improved Alka-Seltzer Plus, as described in the TV ad: “The Cold Truth”, (please, watch the ad listed in the Required Readings)
The ad shows that Alka-Seltzer Plus fights cough, body aches, runny nose, sneezing and fever, just like Vicks NyQuil does, but it also now can fight congestion, unlike NyQuil.
Explain how the new Alka-Seltzer Plus has been quality- and price-positioned in an existing market. In your opinion, has Bayer positioned their product appropriately in the market for cold and flu symptoms relief products? Would you advise Bayer to use a skimming or a penetration pricing strategy? Explain y

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BUS 640 Week 6 DQ 1 Game Theory and Strategic Behavior

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DQ 1
Game Theory and Strategic Behavior. Suppose that GE is trying to prevent Maytag from entering the market for high efficiency clothes dryers. Even though high efficiency dryers are more costly to produce, they are also more profitable as they command sufficiently higher prices from consumers. The following payoffs table shows the annual profits for GE and Maytag for the advertising spending and entry decisions that they are facing.
Based on this information, can GE successfully prevent Maytag from entering this market by increasing its advertising levels? What is the equilibrium outcome in this game?
Suppose that an analyst at GE is convinced that just a little bit more advertising by GE, say another $2m, would be sufficient to deter enough customers from buying Maytag, thus, yield less than $0 profits for Maytag in the event it enters. Suppose that spending an extra $2m on advertising by GE will reduce its expected profits by $1.5 m, regardless of whether Maytag enters or stays ou

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BUS 640 Week 6 DQ 2 Sustainable Competitive Advantage

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DQ 2
Sustainable Competitive Advantage. Describe the circumstances under which a firm chooses a low-cost strategy to attain sustainable competitive advantage. What about the situations when a differentiation strategy is chosen? Provide specific real world examples.

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BUS 640 Week 6 Assignment Final Paper

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Week 6 Final Paper
Focus of the Final Paper
Research a specific company of your choice and identify some of the managerial decisions that were made over time and in response to changes in its market or competitive environment. Use the Ashford University Online Library and web-based sources for your research. At least three external scholarly sources must be used. Address all of the following areas:
Describe the company and provide a brief history of its operations. Find or use graphs to illustrate its financial performance over the years.
Identify any sources of risk or uncertainty in its operations. Do the financial reports indicate risky or uncertain activities or changes to the economic environment that ultimately appear to have affected the company’s financial outcomes? Be specific.
Are there any government regulations that have affected this company’s operations domestically or abroad? Explain.
Describe the inputs that are used in this company’s production function and identify an