Two years ago, the de castellane manufacturing company included its employees in a profit-sharing plan in which workers receive semi-annual bonuses based on the company's profits. since this plan was initiated, worker productivity at de castellane has nearly doubled. this productivity increase is best explained in terms of.

Ajustification for job training programs is that they improve worker productivity. suppose that you are asked to evaluate whether more job training makes workers more productive. however, rather than having data on individual workers, you have access to data on manufacturing firms in ohio. in particu- lar, for each firm, you have information on hours of job training per worker (training) and number of nondefective items produced per worker hour (output). (i) carefully state the ceteris paribus thought experiment underlying this policy question. (ii) does it seem likely that a firm’s decision to train its workers will be independent of worker characteristics? what are some of those measurable and unmeasurable worker characteristics? (iii) name a factor other than worker characteristics that can affect worker productivity. (iv) if you find a positive correlation between output and training, would you have convincingly established that job training makes workers more productive? explain.

Kenney co. uses process costing to account for the production of canned energy drinks. direct materials are added at the beginning of the process and conversion costs are incurred uniformly throughout the process. equivalent units have been calculated to be 19,200 units for materials and 16,000 units for conversion costs. beginning inventory consisted of $11,200 in materials and $6,400 in conversion costs. april costs were $57,600 for materials and $64,000 for conversion costs. ending inventory still in process was 6,400 units (100% complete for materials, 50% for conversion). the total cost per unit using the weighted average method would be closest to:

Pennewell publishing inc. (pp) is a zero growth company. it currently has zero debt and its earnings before interest and taxes (ebit) are $80,000. pp's current cost of equity is 10%, and its tax rate is 40%. the firm has 10,000 shares of common stock outstanding selling at a price per share of $48.00. refer to the data for pennewell publishing inc. (pp). pp is considering changing its capital structure to one with 30% debt and 70% equity, based on market values. the debt would have an interest rate of 8%. the new funds would be used to repurchase stock. it is estimated that the increase in risk resulting from the added leverage would cause the required rate of return on equity to rise to 12%. if this plan were carried out, what would be pp's new value of operations? a. $484,359 b. $521,173 c. $584,653 d. $560,748 e. $487,805