Sergio leaves his job as a hockey coach to open his own skate sharpening shop at a local rink. Sergio is confident that the skate sharpening business will earn him more than the $500 per week that he earned at his coaching position. Sergio's business is good; he averages 100 pairs of skates per week, and charges $8 per pair to sharpen skates. He does all of the work himself, but has to pay the rink $150 per week for the lease on the equipment. Is Sergio better off operating his own business? a. No, he is only earning $150 per week.
b. Yes, he is earning an economic profit of $800 each week.
c. Yes, he is now earning an economic profit of $150 per week.
d. No, he should have stayed at the coaching position where he earned $500 per week.

Upscale hotels in the united states recently cut their prices by 20 percent in an effort to bolster dwindling occupancy rates among business travelers. a survey performed by a major research organization indicated that businesses are wary of current economic conditions and are now resorting to electronic media, such as the internet and the telephone, to transact business. assume a company's budget permits it to spend $5,000 per month on either business travel or electronic media to transact business. graphically illustrate how a 20 percent decline in the price of business travel would impact this company's budget set if the price of business travel was initially $1,000 per trip and the price of electronic media was $500 per hour. suppose that, after the price of business travel drops, the company issues a report indicating that its marginal rate of substitution between electronic media and business travel is 1. is the company allocating resources efficiently? explain.

Which one of the following statements is true? ddt does not prevent disease from passing from agricultural animals to humans. cost was a major factor in the united states government's decision to ban ddt. many african governments concluded that the potential long-term health effects of ddt were not as serious as the immediate problem of insect control. ddt cannot accumulate in the fat of animals. the ddt ban in the united states has made it very difficult to control agricultural insect pests.

(30 total points) suppose a firm’s production function is given by q = l1/2*k1/2. the marginal product of labor and the marginal product of capital are given by: mpl = 1/ 2 1/ 2 2l k , and mpk = 1/ 2 1/ 2 2k l . a) (12 points) if the price of labor is w = 48, and the price of capital is r = 12, how much labor and capital should the firm hire in order to minimize the cost of production if the firm wants to produce output q = 18?