In 1992, the federal government mandated a switch to low-flow showerheads that only allowed 2.5 gallons of water to be used each minute. Prior to the measure, showerheads routinely allowed a flow of between 5 and 8 gallons per minute. The rationale for the measure was conservation: to reduce the wasteful use of water in the shower. Who are the villains (and are they really villains)? Who are the victims the law is designed to protect (and are they really victims)? Are there really villains and victims in this situation?

Stock a has a beta of 1.2 and a standard deviation of 20%. stock b has a beta of 0.8 and a standard deviation of 25%. portfolio p has $200,000 consisting of $100,000 invested in stock a and $100,000 in stock b. which of the following statements is correct? (assume that the stocks are in equilibrium.) (a) stock b has a higher required rate of return than stock a. (b) portfolio p has a standard deviation of 22.5%. (c) portfolio p has a beta equal to 1.0. (d) more information is needed to determine the portfolio's beta. (e) stock a's returns are less highly correlated with the returns on most other stocks than are b's returns.

David consumes two things: gasoline (g) and bread (b). david's utility function is u(g, b) = 10g^0.25 b^0.75. use the lagrange technique to solve for david's optimal choices of gasoline and bread as a function of the price of gasoline, p_g, the price of bread, p_b, and his income m. with recent decrease in the price of gasoline (maybe due to external shock such as shale gas production) does david increase his consumption of gasoline? for david, how does partial differential g/partial differential p_g depend on his income m? that is, how does david's change in gasoline consumption due to an increase in the price of gasoline depend on his income level? to answer these questions, find the cross-partial derivative, |partial differential^2 g/partial differential m partial differential p_g.

Suppose life expectancy in years (l) is a function of two inputs, health expenditures (h) and nutrition expenditures (n) in hundreds of dollars per year. the production function is upper l equals ch superscript 0.40 baseline upper n superscript 0.60l=ch0.40n0.60. beginning with c = 1, a health input of $400400 per year (hequals=44) and a nutrition input of $400400 per year (nequals=44), show that the marginal product of health expenditures and the marginal product of nutrition expenditures are both decreasing. the marginal product of health expenditures when h goes from 44 to 55 is nothing, and the marginal product of health when h goes from 66 to 77 is nothing. (round your answers to three decimal places.)