Lennon Hearth Products manufactures glass-door fireplace screens that have two types of mounting brackets for the frame. An L-shaped bracket is used for relatively small fireplace openings and a U-shapedbracket is used for all others. The company includes both types of brackets in the box with their product and the purchaser discards the one not needed. The cost of these two brackets with screws and other parts is $3.50. If the frame of the fireplace screen is redesigned, a single universal bracket can be used that will cost $1.20 to make. However, initial costs of retooling ($6000) and inventory write downs ($8000) will be incurred immediately. If the company sells 1200 fireplace units per year, should the company keep the old brackets or go with the new ones, assuming the company uses an interest rate of 15% per year and it wants to recover its in-vestment in 5 years. Use the present worth method for your evaluation.

1. consider a two-firm industry. firm 1 (the incumbent) chooses a level of output qı. firm 2 (the potential entrant) observes qı and then chooses its level of output q2. the demand for the product is p 100 q, where q is the total output sold by the two firms which equals qi +q2. assume that the marginal cost of each firm is zero. a) find the subgame perfect equilibrium levels of qi and q2 keeping in mind that firm 1 chooses qi first and firm 2 observes qi and chooses its q2. find the profits of the two firms-n1 and t2- in the subgame perfect equilibrium. how do these numbers differ from the cournot equilibrium? b) for what level of qi would firm 2 be deterred from entering? would a rational firm 1 have an incentive to choose this level of qi? which entry condition does this market have: blockaded, deterred, or accommodated? now suppose that firm 2 has to incur a fixed cost of entry, f> 0. c) for what values of f will entry be blockaded? d) find out the entry deterring level of q, denoted by q1', a expression for firm l's profit, when entry is deterred, as a function of f. for what values of f would firm 1 use an entry deterring strategy?