BUSI 620 Week 5 Questions for Critical Thinking 5

Description

Business 620

Critical Thinking Five

 

Salvatore’s Chapter 10:

a) Discussion Questions: 2,3 and 8.

b) Problems: 1 and 5.

 

Froeb and McCann’s Chapter 10:

a)      Individual problems: 10-4.

 

Salvatore’s Chapter 11:

a) Discussion Questions: 11,12 and 13.

b) Problems: 2, 6, and 10.

 

 

Froeb and McCann’s Chapter 15:

a) Individual problems: 15-4 and 15-5.

 

Discussion Question 2: (a) What are the advantages of the Herfindahl index over concentration ratios in measuring the degree of concentration in an industry? (b) What is the disadvantage of both?

DQ3: What is the difference between limit pricing and contestable markets?

 

Discussion Question 8: In what way does OPEC resemble a cartel? How successful was it?

Problem 1: Find the Herfindahl index for an industry composed of (a) three firms—one with 70 present of the market, and the other two with 20 and 10 percent of the market, respectively; (b) one firm with a 50 percent share of the market and 10 other equal-sized firms; (c) 10 equal-sized firms.

Problem 5: Starting with the reaction functions of duopolists A and B from Problem 4, find the Cournot solution algebraically.

Froeb and McCann’s Chapter 10:

a) Individual problems: 10-4.

Individual problem 10-4: Examine the US passenger airline industry using the Five Forces. Is this an attractive industry? Why or why not?

Salvatore’s Chapter 11:

a) Discussion Questions: 12 and 13.

b) Problems: 2, 6, and 10.

DQ11: Do the duopolists in a Cournot equilibrium face a prisoners’ dilemma? Explain.

 

Discussion Question 12: How did the 1971 law that banned cigarette advertising on television solve the prisoners’ dilemma for cigarette producers?

Discussion Question 13: (a) What is the meaning of tit-for-tat in game theory? (b) What conditions are usually required for tit-for-tat strategy to be the best strategy?

Problem 2: From the following payoff matrix, where the payoffs are the profits or losses of the two firsts, determine (a) whether firm A has a dominant strategy, (b) whether firm B has a dominant strategy, (c) the optimal strategy for each firm, and (d) the Nash equilibrium, if there is one.

Problem 6: Explain why the payoff matrix in problem 1 indicates that firms A and B faces the prisoner’s dilemma

Problem 10: Given the following payoff matrix, (a) indicate the best strategy for each firm. (b) Why is the entry-deterrent threat by firm A to lower the price credible to B? (c) What could firm A do to make its threat credible without building excess capacity?

Froeb and McCann’s Chapter 15:

a) Individual problems: 15-4 and 15-5.

Individual problem 15-4: The following represents the potential outcomes of your first salary negotiation after graduation: Assuming this is sequential move game with the employer moving first, indicate the most likely outcome. Does the ability to move first give the employer an advantage? If so, how? As the employee, is there anything you could do to realize a higher payoff?

Individual problem 15-5: Every year, management and labor renegotiate a new employment contract by sending the proposals to an arbitrator who chooses the best proposal (effectively giving one side or the other 1 million). Each side can choose to hire, or not hire, an expensive labor lawyer (at the cost of 200,000) who is effective at preparing the proposal in the best light. If neither hires lawyers or if both hire lawyers, each side can expect to with about half of the time. If only one side hires a lawyer, it can expect to win three-quarters of the time.

a) Diagram this simultaneous move game

b) What is the Nash Equilibrium of the game?

c) Would the sides want to ban lawyers?