Factors of production are
(a) the mathematical calculations firms make in determining their optimal production levels.
(b) social and political conditions that affect production.
(c) the physical relationships between economic inputs and outputs.
(d) inputs into the production process.

1. descriptive statistics quickly describe large amounts of data can predict future stock returns with surprising accuracy statisticians understand non-numeric information, like colors refer mainly to patterns that can be found in data 2. a 15% return on a stock means that 15% of the original purchase price of the stock returns to the seller at the end of the year 15% of the people who purchased the stock will see a return the stock is worth 15% more at the end of the year than at the beginning the stock has lost 15% of its value since it was originally sold 3. a stock purchased on january 1 cost $4.35 per share. the same stock, sold on december 31 of the same year, brought in $4.75 per share. what was the approximate return on this stock? 0.09% 109% 1.09% 9% 4. a stock sells for $6.99 on december 31, providing the seller with a 6% annual return. what was the price of the stock at the beginning of the year? $6.59 $1.16 $7.42 $5.84

The common stock of ncp paid $1.35 in dividends last year. dividends are expected to grow at an annual rate of 5.30 percent for an indefinite number of years. a. if ncp's current market price is $22.57 per share, what is the stock's expected rate of return? b. if your required rate of return is 7.3 percent, what is the value of the stock for you? c. should you make the investment? a. if ncp's current market price is $22.57 per share, the stock's expected rate of return is

Blue computers, a major pc manufacturer in the united states, currently has plants in kentucky and pennsylvania. the kentucky plant has a capacity of 1 million units a year and the pennsylvania plant has a capacity of 1.5 million units a year. the firm divides the united states into five markets: northeast, southeast, midwest, south, and west. each pc sells for $1,000. the firm anticipates a 50 perc~nt growth in demand (in each region) this year (after which demand will stabilize) and wants to build a plant with a capacity of 1.5 million units per year to accommodate the growth. potential sites being considered are in north carolina and california. currently the firm pays federal, state, and local taxes on the income from each plant. federal taxes are 20 percent of income, and all state and local taxes are 7 percent of income in each state. north carolina has offered to reduce taxes for the next 10 years from 7 percent to 2 percent. blue computers would like to take the tax break into consideration when planning its network. consider income over the next 10 years in your analysis. assume that all costs remain unchanged over the 10 years. use a discount factor of 0.1 for your analysis. annual fixed costs, production and shipping costs per unit, and current regional demand (before the 50 percent growth) are shown in table 5-13. (a) if blue computers sets an objective of minimizing total fixed and variable costs, where should they build the new plant? how should the network be structured? (b) if blue computers sets an objective of maximizing after-tax profits, where should they build the new plant? how should the network be structured? variable production and shipping cost ($/unit) annual fixed cost northeast southeast midwest south west (million$) kentucky 185 180 175 175 200 150 pennsylvania 170 190 180 200 220 200 n. carolina 180 180 185 185 215 150 california 220 220 195 195 175 150 demand ('000 units/month) 700 400 400 300 600