Aluminum maker Alcoa has a beta of about 1.85, whereas Hormel Foods has a beta of 0.39. If the expected excess return of the market portfolio is 3%, which of these firms has a higher equity cost of capital, and how much higher is it? g

American gas products manufactures a device called a can-emitor that empties the contents of old aerosol cans in 2 to 3 seconds. this eliminates having to dispose of the cans as hazardous wastes. if a certain paint company can save $75,000 per year in waste disposal costs, how much could the company afford to spend now on the can-emitor if it wants to recover its investment in 3 years at an interest rate of 20% per year?

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

Atrough in the business cycle occurs when