Consider the following network representation of a transportation problem. 60 60 Des Moines 25 15 Jefferson City 9 8 Kansas City 20 8 10 40 Omaha 26 St. Louis 55 Supplies Demands The supplies, demands, and transportation costs per unit are shown on the network. What is the optimal (cost minimizing) distribution plan? Amount Jefferson City-Des Moines 0 0 Jefferson City-Kansas City 5 45 Jefferson City-St. Louis 55 440 Omaha-Des Moines 25 Omaha-Kansas City 15 Omaha-St. Louis Total 0 0 Cost ×

HighFlyer Airlines wants to build new airplanes with greatly increased cabin space. This will allow HighFlyer Airlines to give passengers more comfort and sell more tickets at a higher price. However, redesigning the cabin means rethinking many other elements of the airplane as well, like engine and luggage placement, and the most efficient shape of the plane for moving through the air. HighFlyer Airlines has developed a list of possible methods to increase cabin space, along with estimates of how these approaches would affect the planes operating costs and ticket sales. Based on these estimates, Table 13.5 shows the value of R, how much should the firm invest in R on top of the private return; that is, an R private return to HighFlyer Airlines would have a 9 social return. How much investment is socially optimal at the 6 interest rate?

Consider the case of global environmental problems that spill across international borders as a prisoners dilemma of the sort studied in Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly. Say that there are two countries, A and B. Each country can cheese whether to protect the environment, at a cost of 10, or not to protect it, at a cost of zero. If one country decides to protect the environment, there is a benefit of 16, but the benefit is divided equally between the two countries. If both countries decide to protect the environment, there is a benefit of 32, which is divided equally between the two centuries. In Table 12.10, fill in the costs, benefits, and total payoffs to the countries of the following decisions. Explain why, without some international agreement, they are likely to end up with neither country acting to protect the environment.

A country called Sherwood is very heavily covered with a forest of 50,000 trees. There are proposals to clear some of Sherwoods forest and grow com, but obtaining this additional economic output will have an environmental cost from reducing the number of trees. Table 12.11 shows possible combinations of economic output and environmental protection. Sketch a graph of a production possibility frontier with environmental quality on the horizontal axis, measured by the number of trees, and the quantity of economic output, measured in corn, on the vertical axis. Which choices display productive efficiency? How can you tell? Which choices show allocative efficiency? How can you tell? In the choice between T and R, decide which one is better. Why? In the choice between T and S, can you say which one is better, and why? If you had to guess, which choice would you think is more likely to represent a command-and-control environmental policy and which choice is more likely to represent a market-oriented environmental policy, choice Q or S? Why?

The chapter defines private enterprise as a characteristic of market-oriented economies. What would public enterprise be? Hint: It is a characteristic of command economies.

Radio stations, tornado sirens, light houses, and street lights are all public goods in that all are nonrivalrous and nonexclusionary. Therefore why does the government provide tornado sirens, street lights and light houses but not radio stations (other than PBS stations)?

Is zero pollution possible under a marketable permits system? Why or why not?

(External Costs with Variable Technology) Think of an industry that pollutes the water and has access to variable technology for reducing that pollution. Graphically illustrate and explain the impact of each of the following, other things constant, on the optimal level of water quality: a. New evidence is discovered about a greater risk of cancer from water pollution. b. The cost of pollution-control equipment increases. c. A technological improvement reduces the cost of pollution control.

Becky and Sarah are sisters 1who share a room. Their room can easily get messy, and their parents am always telling them to tidy it. Here are the costs and benefits to both Becky and Sarah, of taking the time to clean their room: If both Becky and Sarah clean, they each spends two hours and get a clean room. If Becky decides not to clean and Sarah does all the cleaning, then Sarah spends 10 hours cleaning (Becky spends 0) but Sarah is exhausted. The same would occur for Becky if Sarah decided not to clean—Becky spends 10 hours and becomes exhausted. If both girls decide not to clean, they both have a dirty room. What is the best outcome for Becky and Sarah? What is the worst outcome? (It would help you to construct a prisoners dilemma table.) Unfortunately, we know that the optimal outcome will most liker not happen, and that the sisters probably will choose the worst one instead. Explain what it is about Beckys and Sarahs reasoning that will lead them both to choose the worst outcome.

Consider two ways of protecting elephants from poachers in African countries. In one approach, the government sets up enormous national parks that have sufficient habitat for elephants to thrive and forbids all local people to enter the parks or to injure either the elephants or their habitat in any way. In a second approach, the government sets up national parks and designates 10 villages around the edges of the park as official tourist centers that become places where tourists can stay and bases for guided tours inside the national park. Consider the different incentives of local villagers-who often are very poor-in each of these plans. Which plan seems more likely to help the elephant population?