Managerial Economics 4th Edition
Managerial Economics 4th Edition
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Managerial Economics: A Problem Solving © 2016, 2014 Cengage Learning
Approach, Fourth Edition
WCN: 02--200-203
Luke M. Froeb, Brian T. McCann,
Mikhael Shor, Michael R. Ward ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the copyright
herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by
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For our families: Lisa, Jake, Halley, Chris, Leslie, Jacob,
Eliana, Cindy, Alex, and Chris
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BRIEF CONTENTS
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vi BRIEF CONTENTS
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CONTENTS
vii
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viii CONTENTS
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CONTENTS ix
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x CONTENTS
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CONTENTS xi
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xii CONTENTS
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PREFACE
xiii
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xiv PREFACE
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PREFACE xv
work experience. Its relatively short length makes it reasonably easy to cus-
tomize with ancillary material.
The authors use the text in full-time MBA programs, executive MBA pro-
grams (weekends), healthcare management executive programs (one night a
week), and nondegree executive education. However, some of our biggest
customers use the book in online business classes at both the graduate and
undergraduate levels.
In the degree programs, we supplement the material in the book with online
interactive programs like Cengage’s CourseMate or Samuel Baker’s Economic
Interactive Tutorials.2 Complete Blackboard courses, including syllabi, quizzes,
homework, slides, videos to complement each chapter, and links to supplementary
material, can be downloaded from the Cengage website. Our ManagerialEcon.com
blog is a good source of new business applications for each of the chapters.
In this fourth edition, we have updated and improved the presentation
and pedagogy of the book. The biggest change is in the supplementary mate-
rial: we have added videos to complement each chapter, included worked
video problems, and dramatically increased the size and quality of the test
bank. In addition to the other updates throughout the text, Chapter 24,
“You Be the Consultant,” has all-new content.
We wish to acknowledge numerous classes of MBA, executive MBA,
nondegree executive education, and healthcare management students, without
whom none of this would have been possible—or necessary. Many of our for-
mer students will recognize stories from their companies in the book. Most of
the stories in the book are from students and are for teaching purposes only.
Thanks to everyone who contributed, knowingly or not, to the book.
Professor Froeb owes intellectual debts to former colleagues at the U.S.
Department of Justice (among them, Cindy Alexander, Tim Brennan, Ken
Heyer, Kevin James, Bruce Kobayahsi, and Greg Werden); to former collea-
gues at the Federal Trade Commission (among them James Cooper, Pauline
Ippolito, Tim Muris, Dan O’Brien, Maureen Ohlhausen, Paul Pautler, Mike
Vita, and Steven Tenn); to colleagues at Vanderbilt (among them, Germain
Boer, Jim Bradford, Bill Christie, Mark Cohen, Myeong Chang, Craig Lewis,
Rick Oliver, David Parsley, David Rados, Steven Tschantz, David Scheffman,
and Bart Victor); and to numerous friends and colleagues who offered sugges-
tions, problems, and anecdotes for the book, among them, Lily Alberts,
Olafur Arnarson, Raj Asirvatham, Bert Bailey, Pat Bajari, Molly Bash, Sarah
Berhalter, Roger Brinner, the Honorable Jim Cooper, Matthew Dixon
Cowles, Abie Del Favero, Kelsey Duggan, Vince Durnan, Marjorie Eastman,
Keri Floyd, Josh Gapp, Brock Hardisty, Trent Holbrook, Jeff and Jenny
Hubbard, Brad Jenkins, Dan Kessler, Bev Landstreet (B5), Bert Mathews,
Christine Milner, Jim Overdahl, Rich Peoples, Annaji Pervajie, Jason Rawlins,
Mike Saint, David Shayne, Jon Shayne, Bill Shughart, Doug Tice, Whitney Tilson,
and Susan Woodward. We owe intellectual and pedagogical debts to Armen
Alchian and William Allen,3 Henry Hazlitt,4 Shlomo Maital,5 John MacMillan,6
Steven Landsburg,7 Ivan Png,8 Victor Tabbush,9 Michael Jensen and William
Meckling,10 and James Brickley, Clifford Smith, and Jerold Zimmerman.11
Special thanks to everyone who guided us through the publishing process,
including Daniel Noguera, Steve Scoble, Michael Worls, and Jyotsna Ojha.
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xvi PREFACE
END NOTES
1. Much of the material is taken from Froeb, 6. John McMillan, Games, Strategies, and
Luke M. and Ward, James C., “Teaching Managers (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
Managerial Economics with Problems 1992).
Instead of Models” (April 5, 2011). The 7. Steven Landsburg, The Armchair Economist:
International Handbook on Teaching and Economics and Everyday Life (New York:
Learning Economics, ed. Gail Hoyt, Free Press, 1993).
KimMarie McGoldrick, eds. (Edward Elgar 8. Ivan Png, Managerial Economics (Maiden,
Publishing, 2012: Northampton, MA. MA: Blackwell, 1998).
2. http://sambaker.com/econ/ 9. http://www.mbaprimer.com
3. Armen Alchian and William Allen, Exchange 10. Michael Jensen and William Meckling, A
and Production, 3rd ed. (Belmont, CA: Theory of the Firm: Governance, Residual
Wadsworth, 1983). Claims and Organizational Forms (Cambridge,
4. Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).
(New York: Crown, 1979). 11. James Brickley, Clifford Smith, and Jerold
5. Shlomo Maital, Executive Economics: Ten Zimmerman, Managerial Economics and
Essential Tools for Managers (New York: Organizational Architecture (Chicago: Irwin,
Free Press, 1994). 1997).
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MANAGERIAL
ECONOMICS
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SECTION 1
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Introduction: What This
1
Book Is About
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4 SECTION I • Problem Solving and Decision Making
The one thing that unites economists is their use of the rational-actor
paradigm to predict behavior. Simply put, it says that people act rationally,
optimally, and self-interestedly. In other words, they respond to incentives.
The paradigm not only helps you figure out why people behave the way they
do but also suggests ways to motivate them to change. To change behavior,
you have to change self-interest, and you do that by changing incentives.
Incentives are created by rewarding good performance with, for example,
a commission on sales or a bonus based on profitability. The performance
evaluation metric (revenue, cost, profit, or similar outcome) is separate from
the reward structure (commission, bonus, raise, or promotion), but they
work together to create an incentive to behave a certain way.
To illustrate, let’s go back to OVI’s story and try to find the source of the
problem. After his company won the auction, our geologist increased the
company’s oil reserves by the amount of oil estimated to be in the tract. But
when the company drilled a well, they discovered only a small amount of oil,
so the acquisition did little to increase the size of the company’s oil reserves.
Using the information from the well, our geologist updated the reservoir map
and reduced the reserve estimate by two-thirds.
Senior management rejected the lower estimate and directed the geologist
to “do what he could” to increase the size of the estimated reserves. So he
revised the reservoir map again, adding “additional” reserves to the com-
pany’s asset base. The reason behind this behavior became clear when, sev-
eral months later, OVI’s senior managers resigned, collecting bonuses tied to
the increase in oil reserves that had accumulated during their tenure.
The incentive created by the bonus plan explains the behavior of senior
management. Both the overbidding and the effort to inflate the reserve esti-
mate were rational, self-interested responses to the incentive created by the
bonus. Even if you didn’t know about the geologist’s bid recommendation,
you’d still suspect that the senior managers overbid because they had the
incentive to do so. Senior managers’ ability to manipulate the reserve estimate
made it difficult for shareholders and their representatives on the board of
directors to spot the mistake.
To fix this problem, you have to find a way to better align managers’
incentives with the company’s goals. To do this, find a way to reward man-
agement for increasing profitability, not just for acquiring reserves. This is
not as easy as it sounds because it is difficult to measure a manager’s contri-
bution to company profitability. You can do this subjectively, with annual
performance reviews, or objectively, using company earnings or stock price
appreciation as performance metrics. But each of these performance metrics
can create problems, as we’ll see in later chapters.
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Another random document with
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DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.