Economics Questions

1. The theory of comparative advantage is generally used to demonstrate the benefits of international trade. Could the argument also be used to show that it might be worthwhile for firms to contract out specific activities even when they are equally or more cost effective in money terms than external contractors in providing the same activities or functions? 2. Some people, believing that the consumption of alcohol is both 'individually and socially undesirable', claim that governments should put taxes on liquor so that people will consume less alcohol and spend more money on other goods. Indicate how an understanding of demand and of price elasticity of demand is useful in analyzing thi... click for more

Internet economics

Using a "time + money" activity perspective, what are some of the changes you might anticipate from each of the following trends: a.The impact on Internet usage patterns as more of the world's Internet users coming from lower-income developing countries such as India, China, and Brazil? b.The impact of rising broadband adoption in the U.S. on the sales of Tower Records? c. The impact on other Internet usage and other media consumption from the development of even more captivating multi-person online games?

Economics of internet

One of the stumbling blocks of Voice over IP (VOIP) has been the implementation of a "911" service. The following story appeared on the newswires on Tuesday: AT&T Internet call service to require location Tue Oct 11, 2005 2:52 PM ET WASHINGTON, Oct 11 (Reuters) - AT&T Corp. said on Tuesday it would suspend Internet phone service for subscribers who fail to keep their location up to date when they move around with the mobile service. Internet telephone service, known as Voice over Internet Protocol, can be used anywhere a subscriber has a high-speed Internet connection, which are becoming more common around the world. That mobility has prompted concerns by U.S. communications r... click for more

Economics of internet

(See attached file for full problem description) --- Using historical data and some forecasting models, a company identifies two types of customers it serves. The first group it calls the "steady spenders" and the second group it labels the "future loyals". It expects to recruit 1000 of each type for the current period (period 0). Anticipated results are in the table below. The first column is the time period, the second column for each cohort is the expected number active during that period, the third column the spending by an active customer, and the fourth column the incremental costs to service an active customer. ---

Economics of internet

2.1. In the readings we saw that Internet communication (such as email) consumed on average 57% of the time spent online and Internet browsing (such as visiting web sites) used the other 43%. We also saw that the average online user in the U.S. spent approximately 3 hours per day using the Net. Assume the incremental monetary costs of using the Net are negligible and can be taken as zero. Furthermore, assume that an average Internet user is maximizing his or her utility with this time allocation. a. Let the utility of each of the two Internet uses be given by: Utility of online usage type i = , where t stands for the time spent on an activity. What is the numerical value of t... click for more