positive economics value judgments, tries to establish statements about economic behavior, and deals with economic events.

Consider the local telephone company, a natural monopoly. the following graph shows the monthly demand curve for phone services and the company’s marginal revenue (mr), marginal cost (mc), and average total cost (atc) curves. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 price (dollars per subscription) quantity (thousands of subscriptions) d mr mc atc 8, 60 suppose that the government has decided not to regulate this industry, and the firm is free to maximize profits, without constraints. complete the first row of the following table. pricing mechanism short run long-run decision quantity price profit (subscriptions) (dollars per subscription) profit maximization marginal-cost pricing average-cost pricing suppose that the government forces the monopolist to set the price equal to marginal cost. complete the second row of the previous table. suppose that the government forces the monopolist to set the price equal to average total cost. complete the third row of the previous table. under average-cost pricing, the government will raise the price of output whenever a firm’s costs increase, and lower the price whenever a firm’s costs decrease. over time, under the average-cost pricing policy, what will the local telephone company most likely do

Kelso electric is debating between a leveraged and an unleveraged capital structure. the all equity capital structure would consist of 40,000 shares of stock. the debt and equity option would consist of 25,000 shares of stock plus $280,000 of debt with an interest rate of 7 percent. what is the break-even level of earnings before interest and taxes between these two options?

Health insurance protects you if you experience any of the following except: a: if you have to be hospitalized b: if you damage someone's property c: if you need to visit a clinic d: if you can't work because of illness