The lower the user's switching costs:
the lesser the bargaining power from both suppliers and influential customers.
harder it is for the sellers of attractive substitutes to lure buyers to their offering.
greater the bargaining power from both suppliers and influential customers.
less intense the competitive pressures posed by substitute products.
more intense the competitive pressures posed by substitute products.

Maldonia has a comparative advantage in the production of , while lamponia has a comparative advantage in the production of . suppose that maldonia and lamponia specialize in the production of the goods in which each has a comparative advantage. after specialization, the two countries can produce a total of million pounds of lemons and million pounds of coffee.

Onsider the following subscription behavior information from genie, a web site that provides tools for constructing a family tree (ancestor search). subscriptions cost $9.99 per month, but you are charged for the entire year at the time of purchase. there is a one-year minimum term when you sign up for the service. once purchased, subscriptions are set to renew automatically unless the subscriber cancels them. when a membership renews, it renews for a one-year term and again you are charged for the entire year. there are no variable costs associated with providing this service to an individual customer, but genie does engage in customer relationship activities that they believe will increase customer retention. these customer relationship activities cost genie about $10 per year per customer. based on a sample of 1000 customers that joined genie five years ago, near the time when the company was founded, they were able to determine how many of those customers remained subscribers in the second year, third year etc. based on this information, genie calculated the average annual retention rate to be 20%. genie uses an annual discount rate of 8%. a. last year, genie spent $10,000 placing advertisements on google. genie management believes that these advertisements were responsible for about 300 new subscribers. would you recommend to genie management that they purchase more google ads? b. suppose a newly-introduced loyalty program increases the number of customers that remained to 30%. does this new data change your answer to 9.a? c. do you have any hesitations or concerns about making recommendations to management based on your above estimate of customer lifetime value?

In a perfectly competitive market, the long-run market supply curve tends to be horizontal or nearly so. what is another way to state this fact? (a) market supply is much more elastic in the long run than the short run. (b) in the long run, average total cost is minimized. (c) in the long run, price equals marginal cost. (d) market supply is much less elastic in the long run than the short run.