Business owners like to know how their decisions will affect their business. before making decisions, owners may explore the benefits of hypothesis testing. by making such tests, they can have more confidence in their decisions. one example is joe smith who is testing to see whether the company's gym shoe will have a significant difference on weight loss. if the company markets this shoe and finds that it does not cause weight loss as expected, they may want to consider their marketing strategy or dropping the campaign all together. what is a scenario of how hypothesis testing can be used in the business world

5. profit maximization and shutting down in the short run suppose that the market for polos is a competitive market. the following graph shows the daily cost curves of a firm operating in this market. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 price (dollars per polo) quantity (thousands of polos) mc atc avc for each price in the following table, calculate the firm's optimal quantity of units to produce, and determine the profit or loss if it produces at that quantity, using the data from the previous graph to identify its total variable cost. assume that if the firm is indifferent between producing and shutting down, it will produce. (hint: you can select the purple points [diamond symbols] on the previous graph to see precise information on average variable cost.) price quantity total revenue fixed cost variable cost profit (dollars per polo) (polos) (dollars) (dollars) (dollars) (dollars) 12.50 135,000 27.50 135,000 45.00 135,000 if the firm shuts down, it must incur its fixed costs (fc) in the short run. in this case, the firm's fixed cost is $135,000 per day. in other words, if it shuts down, the firm would suffer losses of $135,000 per day until its fixed costs end (such as the expiration of a building lease). this firm's shutdown price—that is, the price below which it is optimal for the firm to shut down—is per polo.

Oz makes lion food out of giraffe and gazelle meat. giraffe meat has 18 grams of protein and 36 grams of fat per pound, while gazelle meat has 36 grams of protein and 18 grams of fat per pound. a batch of lion food must contain at least "46,800" grams of protein and 70,200 grams of fat. giraffe meat costs $1/pound and gazelle meat costs $2/pound. how many pounds of each should go into each batch of lion food in order to minimize costs? hint [see example 2.]

Mikkelson corporation's stock had a required return of 12.50% last year, when the risk-free rate was 3% and the market risk premium was 4.75%. then an increase in investor risk aversion caused the market risk premium to rise by 2%. the risk-free rate and the firm's beta remain unchanged. what is the company's new required rate of return? (hint: first calculate the beta, then find the required return.) do not round your intermediate calculations.