econ2

[12:43 AM, 10/25/2021] Flo: The Wilfrid Laurier University bookstore conducts annual surveys of its customers. One question asks respondents to rate the prices of textbooks. The wording is, "The bookstore's prices of textbooks are reasonable." The responses are as follows:

1. Strongly disagree

2. Disagree

3. Neither agree nor disagree

4. Agree

5. Strongly agree

The responses for a group of 115 students were recorded. Graphically summarize these data and report your findings. [12:45 AM, 10/25/2021] Flo: What is the solution? The CIA World Fact Book presents an array of international data about people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues around the world. Use data from the CIA World Factbook (Links to an external site.) to create graphics that answer the following questions:

Where are the 10 countries with the highest median age? What are the energy production and consumption of the 10 largest countries by geographic areas and by population? Select a country in which you would like to live one day or one that is home to a client or business partner of your organization. How does that country compare to the United States on at least two of the following factors? Choose from people, government, e... [12:58 AM, 10/25/2021] Flo: The distinction between contracts that are covered by the UCC and those that are not is?

To satisfy the UCC statute of frauds, a written agreement for the sale of goods must

8 As investment management companies develop global operations and competition between them becomes more intense, a need has developed for global performance standards to enable a more reliable comparison of managers' performance. The developing standards include the following four elements: f each of these standards in ensuring that the comparison provides a more accurate reflection of managers' underlying performance.

7 You are the consultant to the trustees of a new and growing defined benefits pension scheme. The chairman of the trustees has just liquidated his own small personal portfolio. In view of continued volatility in world markets, he has recommended to his fellow trustees that the company scheme switches all its funds into bonds and cash. The trustees have asked you to comment on his recommendation. Discuss the main items which you would include in your response.

6 (i) A company has a current market capitalisation of 500m and has pursued a dividend policy which ensures that its cover remains a constant two times. The latest dividend was 25p per share and the share price last traded at 10. The latest annual report states that the average cost of capital for the company is 7% and that its net assets per share stand at 4. Calculate (a) the company's historic PER (b) the EVA of the company (c) the value the market is currently placing on this EVA [6] (ii) Explain how the price earnings ratio of Chemical companies might be expected to compare with the ratio of companies in the Pharmaceutical sector over the course of a typical trade cycle.

5 (i) List the uses of investment indices. [4] (ii) In the recent past the Dow Jones Index has outperformed both the S&P 500 Index and the Russell 2000 Index. Describe the main features of these three indices and give possible reasons for the divergent performance. [4] (iii) A new UK index is being proposed which will be an arithmetically weighted index. The weights used in the index will be industry based using contributions of the industry to GDP e.g. if the life assurance industry represented 5% of GDP then the life assurance sector would have a 5% weight in the index. Comment on the proposed new index, and compare it with other commonly used UK indices. [2] (iv) An investment bank is considering the introduction of an index of commodity future prices, to use as a barometer of global industrial supply and demand. List three broad classes of commodities you would expect to be included in the index and comment on the factors you would consider when building the index.

4 After several years of poor investment performance the senior management of a small life insurance company is concerned about the ability of its in-house investment team to deliver the consistently good results which are required to remain competitive. The poor domestic equity performance has been attributed to the team's tendency to favor small stocks which have value characteristics. The poor overseas performance has been blamed on a lack of resources. (a) State the broad options available to the company in respect of its investment operations. (b) Explain in detail the considerations involved in these options, and the investigations which need to be conducted in order to decide which option to pursue.

3 You are the Chief Investment Officer of a fund management organization. After a number of high profile financial failures and crises in financial institutions, the board of the organization has asked you to review investment risk controls within your operation. (i) Define four types of risk which will need to be considered. [2] (ii) Discuss the key points which you will need to examine in order to satisfy the board of directors.

Optimal policy under discretion means the policy maker resets policy choices each period. We are told to assume an efficient steady state, so y appears in the loss function. The policymaker therefore solves a static problem:

min (+9) 9. 2

subject to the Phillips Curve. If we denote the Lagrange multiplier on the constraint as E, the first order conditions for inflation and the output gap are:

+=0

Combining these equations leads to a targeting rule that keeps the output gap pro portional to inflation:

There are no trade-off shocks in the Phillips Curve so it is possible to close the output. gap and the inflation gap at the same time. O is a solution to this policy rule, it minimize the loss function and is consistent with the IS and PC equations. Optimal policy therefore completely offset the recession in part (c).

e) Now suppose the central bank has access to a credible commitment technology. How would your answer to (d) change if the central bank followed the optimal policy rule under commitment? You do not need to derive anything, but explain how commitment policy differs from discretionary policy and whether this would change the optimal path tout ran and inflation.

Visit the website of a company that you like to purchase products from. Examine their sustainability efforts and comment whether it is taking initiatives to improve its environmental performance or social impact.

Write a peer response to each one below to deepen the discussion keeping the guidlines of above to the below:

1. Hi professor and class,

Ironic as I am getting ready for new snow tires- and I always purchase Michelin tires.

Michelin has a few sustainability efforts- one is sustainable rubber tree farming, investments in bio-sourced materials and new recycling technologies, and to make all its logistics, supply, and manufacturing operations carbon neutral by 2050. Michelin also notes that they are making energy-efficient tires to improve the efficiency of transportation systems while reducing their carbon footprint, this is a give in- there are many tire brands and manufacturers so Michelin better be investing in their tires or they will lose competitive advantage. (Michelin, 2020)

In comparison- Goodyear sustainability is more precise than Water by 33% by 2020, energy 25% by 2023 and establish zero waste to landfill by 2006. (Goodyear corporate. 2021)

If I purchased the product based on only sustainability justification- Goodyear has concrete goals in comparison to Michelin so between the two I would buy Goodyear. Since I don't, I go the quality and reliability of the product from experience- I will stay with Michelin as they have always been dependable.

Tom

Reference

Michelin (2021). An all-sustainable future. Retrieved from Michelin - The All Sustainable Michelin

Goodyear Corporate (2021). What we hope to achieve. Retrieved from Our Goals (goodyear.com)

2. In my life, the demand for daily necessities is the largest, so I prefer to go to COSTCO to purchase various daily necessities and ingredients. First of all, because COSTCO is a very large wholesale brand in Canada, it can guarantee that the price is lower than most of the market, but the quality will not change. This is a factor that affects my purchase. Another very important factor is that COSTCO's products will have a certain quality assurance. Their products not only meet various standards but are also environmentally friendly. According to their official website, they pay much attention to carbon emissions and water pollution, "In recognition of the business imperative to address climate change, in fiscal year 2020 we substantially accelerated efforts to better understand, assess, quantify, and execute on action associated with our Scope 1 (direct emissions within our operations), Scope 2 (indirection emissions from energy usage), and Scope 3 (emissions outside of our operations such as waste and supply chain) CO2e footprint and our overarching response to climate change. "( COSTCO, 2021) They have certain treatment modes for environmental compliance, water, energy, waste, etc. Just like the control of water usage, "We are building a dashboard to track water usage by warehouse. Our Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for minimizing water use will be gallons consumed per square foot per month." (COSTCO, 2021). The same is true for energy management, ", Based on COSTCO's strict environmental control, I will choose to continue to purchase from COSTCO. Of course, WALMART is also a good choice.

Silvia

Reference

COSTCO WHOLESALE (2021) CLIMATE ACTION PLAN https://www.costco.com/sustainability-climate-action-plan.html

3. I enjoyed making my purchase from Etsy Inc. Itis an Americane-commercecompany focused onhandmadeorvintageitems andcraftsupplies. Also, if you want a super personalized and unique gift,Etsyis the place to go

Economic Impact: Make creative entrepreneurship a path to economic security and personal empowerment.

Social Impact: Enable equitable access to the opportunities that they create.

Ecological Impact: Build long-term resilience by eliminating their carbon impacts and fostering responsible resource use.

Ecommerce giantEtsyhas unveiled a new goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2030, including a50% absolute reduction in Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions and a 13.5% absolute reduction in Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. "In defining this goal, we set out to cast the widest net possible to ensure we're reducing both our direct and indirect carbon impact,"wroteEtsy CEO Josh Silverman in a blog post.

To reach the new goal, the company plans to increase its focus on working with sustainable vendors and suppliers and further its advocacy for the decarbonization of the logistics and transportation sector.

As climate change remains an ever-present threat to our environment and humanity, Etsy is bound and determined to do everything within their power to not only continue to be a carbon neutral company, but to also drive reductions in their overall footprint.

Etsy's environmental goals include powering its marketplace with 100% renewable electricity and running zero waste operations globally. The company says it was the first ecommerce company tooffset carbon emissionsfrom shipping, which it did in 2019.

Etsy is one of an increasing number of companies that release anintegrated annual report, which incorporates both progress in both the financial and sustainability arenas.

I'd definitely continue my purchase at Etsy Company based on the present measures that the company is adopting. Likewise, I usually consider shopping at Amazon and eBay Company as they also behave responsibly, ethically and sustainably!

Nastu, J. (2021, March 15). To achieve net-zero emissions etsy sides with sustainable vendors. Environment + Energy Leader. Retrieved October 18, 2021, from https://www.environmentalleader.com/2021/02/etsy-to-focus-on-sustainable-vendors-and-suppliers-to-reach-net-zero-emissions-by-2030/

Gittell, R., Magnusson, M., & Merenda, M. (2012).The sustainable business case book. Saylor Foundation.https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/the-sustainable-business-case-book

Question: Consider a horizontally differentiated product market in which two firms are located at any points l1 and l2 on the real line, respectively, with the notation l1 l2. Firms produce at marginal costs c. There is a continuum of consumers of mass 1 who are uniformly distributed on the unit interval. They have unit demand and have an outside utility of . A consumer located at x [0; 1] obtains indirect utility v = max (v1; v2) with v1 = r (x l1) 2 p1 if she buys one unit from firm 1 and v2 = r (l2 x) 2 p2 if she buys from firm 2. Firms have marginal costs equal to c.

a. Suppose that prices are regulated at pi = 2c. In the game in which firms simultaneously decide where to locate their product, characterize the Nash equilibrium.

b. Determine the demand function for each firm for each admissible price pair (p1; p2) given locations l1 and l2.

c. Suppose that the two firms simultaneously set prices. Determine the market equilibrium for all possible combinations of (l1; l2).

d. Suppose that the social planner chooses first-best optimal prices. Which price pairs would be socially optimal for the pair of locations l1 = 0 and l2 = 1/2?

e. Compare your results obtained in (c) and (d) for locations l1 = 0 and l2 = 1/2. Is the equilibrium socially efficient? Depending on your answer elaborate on the sources of the inefficiency or give the reason for efficiency

Optimal policy under discretion means the policy maker resets policy choices each period. We are told to assume an efficient steady state, so y appears in the loss function. The policymaker therefore solves a static problem:

min (+9) 9. 2

subject to the Phillips Curve. If we denote the Lagrange multiplier on the constraint as E, the first order conditions for inflation and the output gap are:

+=0

Combining these equations leads to a targeting rule that keeps the output gap pro portional to inflation:

There are no trade-off shocks in the Phillips Curve so it is possible to close the output. gap and the inflation gap at the same time. O is a solution to this policy rule, it minimize the loss function and is consistent with the IS and PC equations. Optimal policy therefore completely offset the recession in part (c).

e) Now suppose the central bank has access to a credible commitment technology. How would your answer to (d) change if the central bank followed the optimal policy rule under commitment? You do not need to derive anything, but explain how commitment policy differs from discretionary policy and whether this would change the optimal path tout ran and inflation.