Williams Inc. produces a single product, a part used in the manufacture of automobile transmissions. Known for its quality and performance, the part is sold to luxury auto manufacturers around the world. Because this is a quality product, Williams has some flexibility in pricing the part. The firm calculates the price using a variety of pricing methods and then chooses the final price based on that information and other strategic information. A summary of the key cost information follows. Williams expects to manufacture and sell 55,000 parts in the coming year. While the demand for Williams’s part has been growing in the past 2 years, management is not only aware of the cyclical nature of the automobile industry, but also concerned about market share and profits during the industry’s current downturn.

Total Costs 4,664,000
Variable manufacturing 839,650
Variable selling and administrative 2,329,875
Plant-level fixed overhead 659,495
Fixed selling and administrative 344,000
Batch-level fixed overhead Total investment in product line 22,334,000
Expected sales (units) 58,000

Determine the price for the part using a markup of 41% of full manufacturing cost.

You are chairman of the board of a successful technology firm. there is a nominal federal corporate tax rate of 35 percent, yet the effective tax rate of the typical corporation is about 12.6%. your firm has been clever with use of transfer pricing and keeping money abroad and has barely paid any taxes over the last 5 years; during this same time period, profits were $28 billion. one member of the board feels that it is un-american to use various accounting strategies in order to avoid paying taxes. others feel that these are legal loopholes and corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to minimize taxes. one board member quoted what the ceo of exxon once said: “i’m not a u.s. company and i don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the u.s.” what are the alternatives? what are your recommendations? why do you recommend this course of action?

Consider an economy where government expenditures are 10 and total tax revenues are 10. the supply of labor is fixed at 125 and the supply of capital is fixed at 8. the economy is described by the following equations. y k to the power of 1 divided by 3 end exponent l to the power of 2 divided by 3 end exponent c 2.5 + 0.75 ( y - t ) i 10 - 0.5 r the level of private savings is

David burdick is the ceo of acme bubblegum, a successful public company. as one of the cofounders of the company, burdick has enjoyed speaking and writing about the success of acme bubblegum for several years. typically, he speaks at conferences or directly to the press, but recently, he has been blogging about his firm anonymously. specifically, he defended a recent advertising campaign that was unpopular among consumers and pointedly attacked one of acme bubblegum’s competitors. burdick deeply enjoys his anonymous blogging and believes that none of his readers actually know that he works for acme bubblegum.should burdick be allowed to praise his company’s performance anonymously online? should he be allowed to attack his competitors without disclosing his relationship with the company? how would you feel if the ceo of a company at which you shopped was secretly writing criticisms of his or her competition? how would you feel if you knew a writer for your favorite blog was actually closely involved in a company that the blog discussed? 1. define the ethical issue? 2. who are the primary stakeholders? 3. what are the possible alternatives? 4. how could you evaluate the ethical implications of the alternative actions (use appropriate decision rules)? 5. what action would you recommend and why?