Discuss the following statement: "Real GDP has decreased for two quarters in a row; we definitely are living through a contraction." a. The statement is correct since this measurement standard has beenmandated by the U. S. Congress.
b. The statement is correct since two consecutive quarters is more than enoughtime to determine aneconomy's trend.
c. The statement is correct because changes in real GDP precisely mirrorchanges in other variables that reflect overall economic activity.
d. The statement is incorrect since the official arbiter of business cycledates (the NBER) looks at multiple indicators of economic activity beforedeclaring the onset of a contraction

In 2007, americans smoked 19.2 billion packs of cigarettes. they paid an average retail price of $4.50 per pack. a. given that the elasticity of supply is 0.50.5 and the elasticity of demand is negative 0.4−0.4, derive linear demand and supply curves for cigarettes. the demand equation is qdequals=nothingplus+nothing times ×p and the supply equation is qsequals=nothingplus+nothing times ×p.

Afirm's before-tax cost of debt, rd, is the interest rate that the firm must pay on debt. because interest is tax deductible, the relevant cost of debt used to calculate a firm's wacc is the cost of debt, rd (1 – t). the cost of debt is used in calculating the wacc because we are interested in maximizing the value of the firm's stock, and the stock price depends on cash flows. it is important to emphasize that the cost of debt is the interest rate on debt, not debt because our primary concern with the cost of capital is its use in capital budgeting decisions. the rate at which the firm has borrowed in the past is because we need to know the cost of capital. for these reasons, the on outstanding debt (which reflects current market conditions) is a better measure of the cost of debt than the . the on the company's -term debt is generally used to calculate the cost of debt because more often than not, the capital is being raised to fund -term projects. quantitative problem: 5 years ago, barton industries issued 25-year noncallable, semiannual bonds with a $1,600 face value and a 8% coupon, semiannual payment ($64 payment every 6 months). the bonds currently sell for $845.87. if the firm's marginal tax rate is 40%, what is the firm's after-tax cost of debt? round your answer to 2 decimal places. do not round intermediate calcu

Wallis company manufactures only one product and uses a standard cost system. the company uses a predetermined plantwide overhead rate that relies on direct labor-hours as the allocation base. all of the company's manufacturing overhead costs are fixed—it does not incur any variable manufacturing overhead costs. the predetermined overhead rate is based on a cost formula that estimated $2,886,000 of fixed manufacturing overhead for an estimated allocation base of 288,600 direct labor-hours. wallis does not maintain any beginning or ending work in process inventory.