Free cash flow (FCF) and net income (NI) differ in the following ways: I) Net income accrues to shareholders, calculated after interest expense; free cash flow is calculated before interest.

II) Net income is calculated after various noncash expenses, including depreciation; FCF adds back depreciation.

III) Capital expenditures and investments in working capital do not appear in net income calculations; however, they do reduce free cash flows.

IV) Net income is never negative; free cash flows can be negative for rapidly growing firms, even if the firm is profitable, because investments can exceed cash flows from operations.

a.

I only

b.

I and II only

c.

I, II, and III only

d.

I, II, III, and IV

Suppose that two firms produce differentiated products and compete in prices. as in class, the two firms are located at two ends of a line one mile apart. consumers are evenly distributed along the line. the firms have identical marginal cost, $60. firm b produces a product with value $110 to consumers. firm a (located at 0 on the unit line) produces a higher quality product with value $120 to consumers. the cost of travel are directly related to the distance a consumer travels to purchase a good. if a consumerhas to travel a mile to purchase a good, the incur a cost of $20. if they have to travel x fraction of a mile, they incur a cost of $20x. (a) write down the expressions for how much a consumer at location d would value the products sold by firms a and b, if they set prices p_{a} and p_{b} ? (b) based on your expressions in (a), how much will be demanded from each firm if prices p_{a} and p_{b} are set? (c) what are the nash equilibrium prices?