Every year, in the weeks surrounding certain holidays, USPS stations all over the country have a surge in parcels, which contain a lot of eventually useless gifts. USPS collects and maintains data about the number of truckloads of mail they had to deliver during these weeks. The data below demand distribution for the number of trucks that have been used in Austin, TX over the last several years; USPS believes that the current year demand will also follow a similar pattern. # of trucks 15 16 17 18 19 20
Probability 0.10 0.15 0.25 0.2 0.18 0.12
The weekly cost of owning and operating a mail truck at the central post office in Austin has been calculated as $600 per week. In the case of an emergency, trucks can be leased from a central USPS depot. This costs the Austin USPS location $1000.

Suppose USPS decides to keep 17 trucks locally for the holiday season. What would be the expected overall cost associated with that decision?

What is the optimal number of trucks that minimizes the overall expected cost? What is the corresponding cost?

On february 3, smart company sold merchandise in the amount of $5,800 to truman company, with credit terms of 2/10, n/30. the cost of the items sold is $4,000. smart uses the perpetual inventory system and the gross method. truman pays the invoice on february 8, and takes the appropriate discount. the journal entry that smart makes on february 8 is:

The gilbert instrument corporation is considering replacing the wood steamer it currently uses to shape guitar sides. the steamer has 6 years of remaining life. if kept,the steamer will have depreciaiton expenses of $650 for five years and $325 for the sixthyear. its current book value is $3,575, and it can be sold on an internet auction site for$4,150 at this time. if the old steamer is not replaced, it can be sold for $800 at the endof its useful life. gilbert is considering purchasing the side steamer 3000, a higher-end steamer, whichcosts $12,000 and has an estimated useful life of 6 years with an estimated salvage value of$1,500. this steamer falls into the macrs 5-year class, so the applicable depreciationrates are 20.00%, 32.00%, 19.20%, 11.52%, 11.52%, and 5.76%. the new steamer is fasterand allows for an output expansion, so sales would rise by $2,000 per year; the newmachine's much greater efficiency would reduce operating expenses by $1,900 per year.to support the greater sales, the new machine would require that inventories increase by$2,900, but accounts payable would simultaneously increase by $700. gilbert's marginalfederal-plus-state tax rate is 40%, and its wacc is 15%.a. should it replace the old steamer? b. npv of replace = $2,083.51

1. consider a two-firm industry. firm 1 (the incumbent) chooses a level of output qı. firm 2 (the potential entrant) observes qı and then chooses its level of output q2. the demand for the product is p 100 q, where q is the total output sold by the two firms which equals qi +q2. assume that the marginal cost of each firm is zero. a) find the subgame perfect equilibrium levels of qi and q2 keeping in mind that firm 1 chooses qi first and firm 2 observes qi and chooses its q2. find the profits of the two firms-n1 and t2- in the subgame perfect equilibrium. how do these numbers differ from the cournot equilibrium? b) for what level of qi would firm 2 be deterred from entering? would a rational firm 1 have an incentive to choose this level of qi? which entry condition does this market have: blockaded, deterred, or accommodated? now suppose that firm 2 has to incur a fixed cost of entry, f> 0. c) for what values of f will entry be blockaded? d) find out the entry deterring level of q, denoted by q1', a expression for firm l's profit, when entry is deterred, as a function of f. for what values of f would firm 1 use an entry deterring strategy?