Striving to be the low-cost provider is a particularly attractive competitive strategy when Multiple Choice managers must launch a concerted, ongoing effort to ferret out cost-saving opportunities in every part of the value chain, for example, cost drivers such as number of products in the product line, capacity utilization, production technology and design, and labor productivity and compensation costs. most rivals are trying to differentiate their product offering from those of rivals. there are many ways to achieve higher product quality that have value to buyers. buyers are not swayed by advertising and are not very brand loyal. most rivals are pursuing best-cost or broad differentiation strategies.

Ajustification for job training programs is that they improve worker productivity. suppose that you are asked to evaluate whether more job training makes workers more productive. however, rather than having data on individual workers, you have access to data on manufacturing firms in ohio. in particu- lar, for each firm, you have information on hours of job training per worker (training) and number of nondefective items produced per worker hour (output). (i) carefully state the ceteris paribus thought experiment underlying this policy question. (ii) does it seem likely that a firm’s decision to train its workers will be independent of worker characteristics? what are some of those measurable and unmeasurable worker characteristics? (iii) name a factor other than worker characteristics that can affect worker productivity. (iv) if you find a positive correlation between output and training, would you have convincingly established that job training makes workers more productive? explain.

The following pertains to smoke, inc.’s investment in debt securities: on december 31, year 3, smoke reclassified a security acquired during the year for $70,000. it had a $50,000 fair value when it was reclassified from trading to available-for-sale. an available-for-sale security costing $75,000, written down to $30,000 in year 2 because of an other-than-temporary impairment of fair value, had a $60,000 fair value on december 31, year 3. what is the net effect of the above items on smoke’s net income for the year ended december 31, year 3?

Advanced enterprises reports year-end information from 2018 as follows: sales (160,250 units) $968,000 cost of goods sold 641,000 gross margin 327,000 operating expenses 263,000 operating income $64,000 advanced is developing the 2019 budget. in 2019 the company would like to increase selling prices by 14.5%, and as a result expects a decrease in sales volume of 9%. all other operating expenses are expected to remain constant. assume that cost of goods sold is a variable cost and that operating expenses are a fixed cost. should advanced increase the selling price in 2019?