Ceteris paribus, a price-discriminating firm will charge less to the customers who: a. have the lowest incomes. b. have the least elastic demand for its product. c. are the most elastic in their demand for a product. d. are the most rational in making their decisions.

You are the manager of a firm that produces output in two plants. the demand for your firm's product is p = 20 − q, where q = q1 + q2. the marginal costs associated with producing in the two plants are mc1 = 2 and mc2 = 2q2. how much output should be produced in plant 1 in order to maximize profits?

Onsider the following subscription behavior information from genie, a web site that provides tools for constructing a family tree (ancestor search). subscriptions cost $9.99 per month, but you are charged for the entire year at the time of purchase. there is a one-year minimum term when you sign up for the service. once purchased, subscriptions are set to renew automatically unless the subscriber cancels them. when a membership renews, it renews for a one-year term and again you are charged for the entire year. there are no variable costs associated with providing this service to an individual customer, but genie does engage in customer relationship activities that they believe will increase customer retention. these customer relationship activities cost genie about $10 per year per customer. based on a sample of 1000 customers that joined genie five years ago, near the time when the company was founded, they were able to determine how many of those customers remained subscribers in the second year, third year etc. based on this information, genie calculated the average annual retention rate to be 20%. genie uses an annual discount rate of 8%. a. last year, genie spent $10,000 placing advertisements on google. genie management believes that these advertisements were responsible for about 300 new subscribers. would you recommend to genie management that they purchase more google ads? b. suppose a newly-introduced loyalty program increases the number of customers that remained to 30%. does this new data change your answer to 9.a? c. do you have any hesitations or concerns about making recommendations to management based on your above estimate of customer lifetime value?

Fanning company is considering the addition of a new product to its cosmetics line. the company has three distinctly different options: a skin cream, a bath oil, or a hair coloring gel. relevant information and budgeted annual income statements for each of the products follow. skin cream bath oil color gel budgeted sales in units (a) 110,000 190,000 70,000 expected sales price (b) $8 $4 $11 variable costs per unit (c) $2 $2 $7 income statements sales revenue (a × b) $880,000 $760,000 $770,000 variable costs (a × c) (220,000) (380,000) (490,000) contribution margin 660,000 380,000 280,000 fixed costs (432,000) (240,000) (76,000) net income $228,000 $140,000 $204,000 required: (a) determine the margin of safety as a percentage for each product. (b) prepare revised income statements for each product, assuming a 20 percent increase in the budgeted sales volume. (c) for each product, determine the percentage change in net income that results from the 20 percent increase in sales. (d) assuming that management is pessimistic and risk averse, which product should the company add to its cosmetics line? (e) assuming that management is optimistic and risk aggressive, which product should the company add to its cosmetics line?