Ibmec Educacional S.A.

Relação de Casos

Aula 02- Olsen’s Pre-Owned CD Players

Aula 03- Southern Turkey

Aula 04- Companhia Wilson

Aula 06- Bond Construction Company

Aula 07- Pacific Copper

Aula 08- Beauregard Textile Company- HBS Case entregue pela secretaria

Instruções

 Os alunos devem ler e analisar os casos acima antes do início da aula prevista para sua
discussão.
 Uma página contendo o resumo do caso e o resumo do encaminhamento de sua solução
deve ser entregue no início da aula.
 Os alunos terão cerca de 10 min em sala de aula para que se reúnam em grupo (a ser
formado em cada aula) e discutam a solução em conjunto.
 A seguir será feita a discussão em conjunto sobre as possíveis abordagens de solução
 Durante a discussão em classe os alunos devem sinalizar ao instrutor sua intenção de falar
levantando a mão.
 Em seus comentários, dúvidas ou afirmativas os alunos devem procurar ser objetivos.

Prof. Roberto Anis Calfat

Economia de Empresas
 Ibmec Educacional S.A.

Aula 02- Olsen’s Pre-Owned CD Players

Sally Olsen, a recent business school graduate, is thinking about starting her own business, and she
has determined that she can procure and market recycle compact disk changers at $200 apiece. An
expert in the field has offered the opinion that unit sales in any year will be 800, 1,000, or 1,200 with
probabilities 0.2, 0.4 and 0.4, respectively. Given the nature of this industry, investors expect to earn
a rate of return of about 12 percent per year. As the market for this product has matured, no growth is
expected. This expert also thinks that realistically, SalIy probably could maintain this business for
about 15 years. After that, she probably would have to deve1op a new business.
The direct cost of purchasing each unit and refurbishing it is $100. In addition, SaIly has the following
annual fixed costs:

Rent $20,000
Utilities 15,000
Property tax 5,000
Insurance 5,000
Sally would pay herself a salary of $500 per week, Which is lower than the $40,000 per year offer
that she is regularly offered by several large firms, including National Electronic Sales, Inc. This
salary offer is the same as that being offered to others with Sally’s training and experience.
Requirements:
1.Develop accounting and economic income statements for each possible level of unit sales.
2.Based on expected profit, what is the value of this firm?
3.After SalIy completed her business plan but before she actually started the operation, National
Electronics increased its salary offer to Sally to $60,000 per year. Again, this is now the salary being
offered to others with skills similar to Sally´s. Under this condition, repeat requirements 1 and 2 as
indicated above.

Prof. Roberto Anis Calfat

Economia de Empresas
Ibmec Educacional S.A.

Aula 03- Southern Turkey

Southern Turkey’s production division operates 10 turkey-producing facilities in Tenesses, Arkansas, and
Kentucky. The firm’s marketing division sells frozen turkey and turkey products in the southeastern United
States. It has been in business since 1955 and currently has an 80 percent market share in the region. There
are numerous other sellers, but they have little impact on Southern Turkey’s operations. Quarterly sales data
for the company (in thousands of pounds) for four years are shown in the following table:

Quarterly Turkey Sales (thousands of pounds)

I II III IV
1995 10,000 10,500 10,5000 14,000
1996 10,500 10,500 11,000 14,500
1997 11,000 11,500 11,500 15,000
1998 11,500 11,500 12,000 16,000

A concern for managers at Southern Turkey is that they lack information about the factors that affect demand
for their product. In the past, some sales forecasts have been inaccurate because of fluctuations in the prices
of substitute goods or changes in general economic conditions. To obtain needed data, management approved
a marketing experiment in 100 cities in the firm’s market area. This experiment was conducted during the first
six months of 1997 and involved charging different prices for turkey and then measuring the per capita
consumption in each city. In addition, data were collected on income per capita and prices of chicken, beef,
and pork for each of the 100 cities. Then multiple-regression techniques were used to estimate the following
per capita demand function for turkey:

Q = 7.00 - 10.0 PT + 2.0 PC + 1,0 PB + 0.50 PP + .0003 I

(4.29) (-5.642) (3.333) (2.876) (0.503) (2.000)
R2 = 0.75

where the t-statistics are in parentheses and

Q = annual turkey consumption per capita (pounds)

PT = price of turkey
PC = price of chicken
PB = price of beef
PP = price of pork
I = per capita income

At the present time, the average wholesale selling price of Southern’s turkey is $0.50 per pound. In the
southeastern United States, the average prices of chicken, beef and pork are $0.50, $1.50, and $1.50 per
pound, respectively. Income per capita in that region is $18,000.

Requirements
1. How much turkey will the firm sell in 1999 and in 2000? How much will be sold in the fourth quarter of each
of those years? (Recall that the fourth quarter includes the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.) Describe
and justify your choice of a forecasting technique. Identify possible sources of error in your forecast.
2. At this time, the firm’s production facilities are capable of producing 17,500,000 pounds of turkey every
three months. However, management has tentative plans to expand capacity by constructing two new
production facilities. These additions will be started in mid-2000 and be operational by June 2001. The
expansion will increase the firm’s production capacity to 19,000,000 pounds per quarter. Should
management proceed with its timetable for expanding capacity? Why or why not?
3. Historically, prices have been determined by using a markup over production cost. Is there reason to
believe that the current price of $0.50 per pound is not the revenue-maximizing price? Explain.

Prof. Roberto Anis Calfat

Economia de Empresas
Ibmec Educacional S.A.

4. In the data provided, does management have any information that would suggest how the demand for
turkey is affected by general economic conditions? Explain. Be specific.
5. Government forecasts predict beef and chicken prices will be 10 percent higher in
1999, while pork prices will decline by 20 percent. The price of turkey is expected to be unchanged.
Estimate the individual impacts of each of these changes on the per capita demand for turkey. How
confident are you about your estimates? How would this change your forecast of sales made in part 1?
Explain.

Prof. Roberto Anis Calfat

Economia de Empresas
Ibmec Educacional S.A.

Aula 04- Companhia Wilson

Os Economistas da Companhia Wilson estão interessados em desenvolver uma função de produção
para fábricas de fertilizantes. Foram coletados dados de 15 diferentes fábricas que produziram o
fertilizante a seguir apresentada:
Fáb. Output Capital
Labor
1 605,3 18891
700,2
2 566,1 19201
651,8
3 647,1 20655
822,9
4 523,7 15082
650,3
5 712,3 20300
859
6 487,5 16079
613
7 761,6 24194
851,3
8 442,5 11504
655,4
9 821,1 25970
900,6
10 397,8 10127
550,4
11 896,7 25622
842,2
12 359,3 12477
540,5
13 979,1 24002
949,4
14 331,7 8042
575,7
15 1064 23972
925,8

Análise

1. Estimar a função de Cobb-Douglas, Q=  L1 K2 onde Q= Output (produção), L = Insumo

de Labor e K = Insumo de capital e  1 e 2 são os parâmetros a serem estimados. Se o
seu programa de computador não tiver uma transformação logarítmica, transforme os dados
precedentes em logaritmos antes de entrar com os dados no modelo.

2. Teste se os coeficientes de capital e trabalho são estatisticamente significativos

3. Determine a porcentagem de variação na produção que é “explicada” pela equação de
regressão..
4. Determine as elasticidades produção de capital e trabalho e dar uma interpretação
econômica para cada valor.
5. Determine se a função de produção exibe retornos de escala crescentes, decrescentes ou
constantes (para isso ignore a questão da significância estatística).

Prof. Roberto Anis Calfat

Economia de Empresas
Ibmec Educacional S.A.

Aula 06- Bond Construction Company

Upon completing a bachelor’s degree program in business in 1992, Allen Bond opened his own
construction business that specializes in building garages for residential homes. By 1998, the firm
had grown substantially and employed 21 carpenters who were paid $25,000 per year. This was the
entire employment complement of the firm; Mr. Bond provided all managerial, accounting, and clerical
functions. During 1998, the company built 400 garages. Excluding materials, which are provided by
the customer, each garage sells for $1,600.
The firm has a large stock of capital equipment including trucks, tools, and sur veying instruments.
Bond has developed a measure for a unit of capital that includes one truck and a specified amount of
other equipment, including a ladder, several power tools, and an air compressor. Currently, the price
to rent one of these units is $5,000 per year, and 15 units are rented. Costs of capital and labor are
the only significant explicit expenses that the firm has. The labor and capital inputs can be var ied
daily.
Bond used a $100,000 inheritance to start the business and is quite pleased that he has received
several offers in the past month to sell the firm for $300,000. The firm’s accountant has prepared an
income statement for 1998 that shows a profit of $15,000 after paying Bond a salary of $25,000 for
the year. The market interest rate is 14 percent for year for loans to risky businesses such as this
one.
Bond has just completed a managerial economics course in the evening school program of the local
community college. Although he is not sure he understood everything, the class did make him aware
of many problems he had not considered before. For example, is Bond Construction really earning a
profit? Is the current mix of capital and labor optimal? The pressures of managing this business are
beginning to bother Bond, and he is wondering if he would not be happier simply taking a job at
Hectel, Inc., a very large construction firm in the same area. Every year the personnel manager calls
him with a job offer. In January 1998, the salary offer was $40,000 per year.
Bond decides to hire a consultant to make a thorough economic analysis of the firm’s operation.
Unfortunately, he has kept very few records that might be used for economic analysis, although
records were maintained on output and inputs of capital and labor for each of the 7 years of
operation. The relevant data are as follows:

Output Capital LaborInput

Year (Garages) (Units) (Worker-Years)
1992 35 1 2
1993 49 1 3
1994 81 4 4
1995 156 4 9
1996 255 8 14
1997 277 12 14
1998 400 15 21

Bond thinks that the Cobb-Douglas function, Q = AK aLb describes the production process. Assume that the firm
has retained you as a consultant and that the information provided above is all that is available.
1. Determine the true economic profit earned by the firm in 1998.
2. If the economic profit earned by the firm in 1998 was negative, determine the breakeven output rate for
the firm. Use the information developed to determine all the relevant total and per-unit cost functions.
3 Use the ordinary least-squares method to estimate the production function. Are returns to scale
increasing, decreasing, or constant? Explain.
4. Determine the optimal mix of labor and capital that should be used to produce
400 units of output. Compare this mix to the actual combination of labor and capital used in 1998.
NOTE: For a Cobb-Douglas production function, the equations for the marginal products of labor and
capital are MPL = b AKaL b-1 and MPK = a AK a-1 Lb

Prof. Roberto Anis Calfat

Economia de Empresas
Ibmec Educacional S.A.

Aula 07- Pacific Copper

Pacific Copper, a family-owned business, produces copper that is purchased by other firms to make wire,
tubing, and sheets. The copper is produced in 1,000-pound ingots and is identifiable as having been produced
by Pacific Copper only by the firm’s name stamped on each ingot.

Pacific operates the only copper mine and smelter in the South Pacific region. Because imports are limited by
high transportation costs, the firm is essentially a monopoly with respect to the sale of copper ingots. The only
real source of competition comes from scrap copper that has been melted back into ingot form. However, this
scrap copper is considered inferior by buyers and sells for a substantially lower price.

Pacific Copper sells to approximately 200 firms in the region. Individual purchases are typically made by
experienced buyers, but orders tend to be small and frequent to allow buyers to keep their inventory costs
down. Although Pacific maintains a published list of prices, it is not uncommon for preferred customers to be
secretly quoted a lower price or better credit terms.
Management estimates that demand for the firm’s product is given by the equation

P = 3,000 - 0.10 Q

where P is the price per ton and Q is the number of tons sold per year. Regression analysis suggests that the
firm’s average and marginal cost equations be

AC = 2,400 - 0.10 Q + 0.000002 Q2

And

MC = 2,400 - 0.20 Q + 0.000006 Q2

Where AC and MC are average and marginal costs per ton.

Requirements
1. If the objective of Pacific management is short-run profit maximization, what will be the optimal price and
rate of output? How much profit is being earned?
2. Suppose that copper ore deposits are discovered on nearby islands, and various area entrepreneurs are
considering the establishment of competing smelters to produce ingots. Pacific’s managers in adopting a
long-run pricing strategy should consider what factors? Be specific.

Prof. Roberto Anis Calfat

Economia de Empresas