Suppose you are an economist working for the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice.

In each of the following cases you are given the task of determining whether the behavior warrants an antitrust investigation for possible illegal acts or is just an example of undesirable, but not illegal, tacit collusion. Explain your reasoning.

a. Two companies dominate the industry for industrial lasers. Several people sit on the boards of directors of both companies.

b. Three banks dominate the market for banking in a given state. Their profits have been going up recently as they add new fees for customer transactions. Advertising among the banks is fierce, and new branches are springing up in many locations.

c. The two oil companies that produce most of the petroleum for the western half of the United States have decided to forgo building their own pipelines and to share a common pipeline, the only means of transporting petroleum products to that market.

d. The two major companies that dominate the market for herbal supplements have each created a subsidiary that sells the same product as the parent company in large quantities but with a generic name.

e. The two largest credit card companies, Passport and OmniCard, have required all banks and retailers who accept their cards to agree to limit their use of rival credit cards.

Which of the following statements concerning an organization's strategy is true? a. cost accountants formulate strategy in an organization since they have more inputs about costs. b. businesses usually follow one of two broad strategies: offering a quality product at a high price, or offering a unique product or service priced lower than the competition. c. a good strategy will always overcome poor implementation. d. strategy specifies how an organization matches its own capabilities with the opportunities in the marketplace to accomplish its objectives.

Calculate the cost of each capital component—in other words, the after-tax cost of debt, the cost of preferred stock (including flotation costs), and the cost of equity (ignoring flotation costs). use both the capm method and the dividend growth approach to find the cost of equity.calculate the cost of new stock using the dividend growth approach.what is the cost of new common stock based on the capm? (hint: find the difference between re and rs as determined by the dividend growth approach and then add that difference to the capm value for rs.)assuming that gao will not issue new equity and will continue to use the same target capital structure, what is the company’s wacc? e. suppose gao is evaluating three projects with the following characteristics.each project has a cost of $1 million. they will all be financed using the target mix of long-term debt, preferred stock, and common equity. the cost of the common equity for each project should be based on the beta estimated for the project. all equity will come from reinvested earnings.equity invested in project a would have a beta of 0.5 and an expected return of 9.0%.equity invested in project b would have a beta of 1.0 and an expected return of 10.0%.equity invested in project c would have a beta of 2.0 and an expected return of 11.0%.analyze the company’s situation, and explain why each project should be accepted or rejected g

Marketing1. suppose the average price for a new disposable cell phone is $20, and the total market potential for that product is $4 million. topco, inc. has a planned market share of 10 percent. how many phones does topco have the potential to sell in this market? 20,0002. use the data from question 3 to calculate topco, inc.'s planned market share in dollars. $400,0003. atlantic car rental charges $29.95 per day to rent a mid-size automobile. pacific car rental, atlantic's main competitor, just reduced prices on all its car rentals. in response, atlantic reduced its prices by 5 percent. now how much does it cost to rent a mid-size automobile from atlantic? $28.45