Engineering Economics & Financial Accounting MG2452: 2 Marks

TWO MARK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

UNIT – I

INTRODUCTION

1. Define Managerial Economics

By combining the basic definition of the two terms “Manager” and “Economics” you get the definition of “managerial economics” . “Managerial Economics” is the study of directing resources in a way that it most efficiently achieves the managerial goals.

Managerial Economics is also the application of the tools of economics analysis in decision making in actual business situations.

2. What is meant by Micro economic analysis?

Micro economic analysis deals with the problems of an individual firm, industry or consumer etc. It helps in dealing with issues which go on within the firm such as putting the resources available with the firm to its best use, allocating resources within various activities of the firm to its best use, allocating resources within various activities of the firm and also deals with being technically and economically efficient.

3. What is meant by Prescriptive approach?

Prescriptive or normative approach tells “How things ought to be done”.

4. What is meant by descriptive approach?

Descriptive approach tells “how things are done”.

5. Scope of Managerial Economics:

The following aspects constitute the scope of managerial economics:

1. Objectives of a business firm

2. Demand analysis and forecasting

3. Cost analysis

4. Production management

5. Supply analysis

6. Pricing decisions, policies and practices

7. Profit management

8. Capital budgeting and investment decisions

9. Decision theory under uncertainty

10. Competition

6. Give the Objectives of a business firm

The objectives of a business firm may be varied. Apart from generating profits a firm has many other objectives like being a market leader, being a cost leader, achieving superior efficiency, achieving superior quality, achieving superior customer responsiveness etc.

7. What is meant by Supply Analysis?

Supply analysis deals with the various aspects of supply of a commodity. Certain important aspects of supply analysis are supply schedule, curves and function, elasticity of supply, law of supply and its limitations and factors influencing supply.

8. What is meant by Capital Budgeting?

Capital budget is the planning of expenditure on assets.

9. Use of Engineering Economics:

Engineering economics accomplishes several objectives. It presents the aspects of traditional economics that are relevant for business and engineering decision making in real life.

10. Define Logistics:

It is the movement of goods from one place to the other.

11. Define Inbound Logistics:

It is the movement of raw materials to the factory premises.

12. Define outbound logistics:

It is the movement of finished goods to wholesaler or retail outlets and to the final consumers.

13. Define Statistics:

Statistics provide the basis for empirical testing of theory. Generalizations or theory cannot be accepted for practice unless these theories are checked against the data from the reality. This way, theories become more practical and useful in real life business situation.

14. Define Economics and define the divisions of Economics:

Economics has two division’s namely micro economics and macro economics. Micro economics is the branch of economics where the unit of study is an individual or a firm while macro economics is branch of economics where the unit of study is aggregative in character and considers the entire economy.

15. Define Accounting:

Accounting can be defined as the recording of financial operations of an organization. Managerial decisions on profits and sales etc. derive input largely from the accounting statement of a firm.

16. Define Managerial Economics and Mathematics:

Many of the theories in mathematics will find use in economics. Concepts such as calculus, vectors, logarithms and exponentials, determinants and matrix, algebra etc are some to name a few. Managerial economics is metrical in character. It estimates various economic relationships prediction relevant economic quantities and uses them in decision making and planning for the future. So mathematics becomes an important tool in managerial economics.

17. Define Operations research:

Operations research was developed as science during the Second World War to solve the complex operations problems of planning and resource allocation in defense and in basic industries which specifically supplied military equipments. These theories find high usage in various field of management to solve problems pertaining to logistics, both inbound and outbound and also the movement of material within the factory premises etc.

18. Define a competitor.

The competitors of the firm are also likely to react or even pro-act to any decisions made by the firm. Competitors always try to navigate the competitive advantage gained by the firm. Thus managers will have to make wise investments in projects that will be hard to be imitated by the competition.

19. Define Decision theory under uncertainty:

Most of the business decisions taken by the managers are done under uncertainty. Uncertainties pertaining to demand, cost, price, profit, capital etc prevail most of the time when decisions are made. This makes the whole decision making process difficult and complex. The tools used in economic analysis have been modified and refined so as to take into account the uncertainty and thus help decisions making in logical and scientific manner.

20. Define Profit Management:

All business firms are motivated and committed to produce profits. Profits are one of the tangible yardsticks to measure the performance of the firm and the managers concerned. It also signifies the health of the firm. Profits are influenced by various factors such as cost of production, revenues and other factors both internal and external to the firm. Profits are hard to predict.

21. Define Pricing Decisions

A firm’s profitability and success greatly depend on the pricing decisions and the pricing policies of the firm. The patronization of the firm’s products by the customers, the competition faced by the product along with the profits of the firm, largely depends on the price of the product. Pricing also depends on the environment in which the firm operates, competitions, customers etc.

22. Define Production Management:

When a manager organizes and plans the firm’s production functions i.e. when he tries to convert the raw materials to finished product, he faces a number of economic problems. The study of ‘production function’ describes the input output relationship.

23. Define Cost Analysis:

One way to earn higher profits is by controlling the cost involved in producing the product. Study of cost is necessary for making efficient and effective managerial decisions. If a detailed cost analysis and estimation is done, the firm can move upon effective profit management and sound pricing practices.

24. What are the Macro economic Conditions?

(a) The economy in which firms operate is predominantly a free enterprise economy.

(b) The present day economy is undergoing rapid technological and economic changes and,

(c) The government intervening in the economic affairs has increased in the recent times and is likely to go up further.

25. What are the Common points in Managerial Economics?

1. Managerial economics deals with the decision making by managers, executives and engineers of economic nature.

2. Managerial economics is goal oriented.

3. Managerial Economics is both conceptual and metrical.

4. Managerial economics is pragmatic.

UNIT – II

DEMAND AND SUPPLY ANALYSIS

1. Define Demand.

Demand indicates the quantities of products (goods service) which the firm is willing and financially able to purchase at various prices, holding other factors constant.

2. Define Determinants of Demand:

An individual’s demand for a commodity depends on his desire and capability to purchase it. Apart from the desire to purchase, there are many other factors which influence the purchase of a product (demand). These are known as demand determinants.

3. What is meant by Tastes and preferences of Consumers?

The change of tastes and preferences of consumers in favor of a commodity will result in a greater demand for the commodity. The opposite also holds good i.e. if the tastes and preferences of consumer change against the commodity, the demand will suffer.

4. What are the two kinds of Consumers expectations?

Consumers have two kinds of expectations one pertains to their future income and the second is related to the future prices of the goods and its related goods.

5. Define Advertising

Advertisements provide information about the presence of quality products in the market and induce customers to buy more. It also promotes the latest preferences of the general public to masses.

6. Define the Law of Demand:

The relation of price to quantity demanded / sales is known as the law of demand. Law of demand states that the higher the price is the lower the demand is and vice versa, holding other factors as constant.

7. Define the price quantity relation.

This price quantity relation can be expressed as demand being a function of price

D=f (p).

8. What Highlights of the law of demand:

1. The relationship between price and quantity demanded is inverse.

2. Price is the independent variable and demands the dependent variable.

3. Law of demand assumes that except for price and demand, other factors remain constant.

9. What is Demand Shift: (Change in demand?)

Factors shift the demand for a particular product either on the right side of the demand curve or to the left side of the demand curve based on the changes in price. These factors, other than the price of a good that influence demand are known as demand shifters. The shift in the demand either to the left or right is called the demand shift.

10. What are the Exceptions to law of demand?

1. In share markets on would have noticed that the rise in price of the shares increases, the sales of the shares while decrease in the price of the shares results in decrease of sale of the shares.

2. Some goods which act as status symbol and have a snob appeal fall under this category. Here when the price of the product raises then the appeal of the product also rises and thus the demand. Some example is diamonds and antiques.

3. Finally, ignorance on the part of the consumer may cause the consumer to buy at a higher price, especially when the rise in price is taken to mean an improvement in quality and a reduction in price as deterioration in quality.

11. Define Individual demand:

The quantity of a product demanded by an individual purchaser at a given price is known as individual demand.

12. Define Market demand:

The total quantity demanded by all the purchasers together is known as the market demand.

13. What are the types of Demand Function?

1. Consumption function

2. Product consumption function

3. Differences in regional incomes

4. Income expectation and demand

14. What are the Characteristics of demand function?

1. The long run relationship between consumption and income is some what stable, and expenditure on consumption is usually about 85 to 90% of the income.

2. The consumption function is highly unstable in short runs and the relationship between income and consumption cannot be predicted by any mathematical formula.

3. During the periods of economic prosperity, there is an absolute increase in the expenditure on consumption, but decrease as a percentage of income during periods of depression, the consumption declines absolutely but the expenditure on the consumption increases as a percentage of income.

4. In the periods of economic recovery, the rate of increase in consumption is higher than the rate of the decline in consumption in times of recession.

15. Define Product consumption function:

This function can be defined as the relationship between the total income of the consumer and sales of particular products. It means that when there is a change in income there is a change in the demand for particular products.

16. Define Income expectations and Demand:

Expectations are related to people’s estimates of the level and durability of the future economic conditions. The demand for many consumer durables (household appliances like TV, Washing machine, etc) is often sensitive to general expectations regarding income level.

17. What are the features of advertising demand relationship?

1. Even when there is no advertising effort done, there will be a certain amount of sales possible for a particular product by virtue of its presence in the market.

2. There is a direct relationship between advertising and sales. Thus when there is an increased spending on advertisements. It will bring in more sales.

3. Increase in advertisements will lead to more than proportionate increase in sales only to a point. After that any increase in advertisement will have only less than proportionate effect on sales.

18. Define Elasticity of Demand?

Elasticity of demand is defined as ‘the percentage change in quantity demanded caused by one percent change in the demand determinant under consideration, while other determinants are held constant’.

19. Define demand determinant

It is the degree of change in demand to the degree of change in any of the demand determinants.

20.What are the Various Elasticities ?

1. Price elasticity of demand

2. Income elasticity of demand

3. Cross elasticity of demand

4. Promotional elasticity

5. Exportations elasticity of demand

21. Define Price Elasticity of Demand

Price elasticity of demand can be defined as “the degree of responsiveness of quantity demanded to a change in price”.

22. What are the Types of price elasticity:

1. Perfectly elastic demand

2. Absolutely inelastic demand or perfectly inelastic demand

3. Unit elasticity of demand

4. Relatively elastic demand

5. Relatively inelastic demand

23. Define absolutely inelastic demand or perfectly inelastic demand (ep=):

Absolutely inelastic demand is where a change in price howsoever large, causes no change in the quantity demanded of a product. Here, the shape of the demand curve is vertical.

24.Define Relatively elastic demand (ep>1):

It is where a reduction in price leads to more than proportionate change in demand. Here the shape of the demand curve in flat.

25.What are theFactors determining price elasticity of Demand ?

The elasticity of demand depends on the following factors namely

1. Nature of the product

2. Extent of usage

3. Availability of substitutes

4. Income level of people

5. Proportion of the income spent of the product

6. Urgency of demand and

7. Durability of a product.

UNIT III

1. Say some of the main cost concepts.

1) Actual costs and opportunity costs

2) Incremental costs and sunk costs

3) Explicit costs and implicit costs

4) Past costs and future costs

5) Accounting costs and economic costs

6) Direct cost and indirect cost

7) Private costs and social costs

8) Controllable costs and non controllable costs

9) Replacement costs and original costs

10) Shutdown costs and abandonment costs

11) Urgent costs and postponable costs

12) Bussiness costs and full sosts

13) Fixed costs and variable costs

14) Short run and long run costs

15) Incremental costs and marginal costs

2. What are actual costs and opportunity costs ?

Actual costs which a firm incurs for producing or acquiring a product or a service. As example for this is the cost on raw materials, labor, rent, interest.

3. What are incremental costs and sunk costs ?

Incremental cost is the additional cost due to change in the level of nature or business activity. Sunk costs are the costs that are not altered by a change in quantity produced and cannot be recovered.

4. What are Explicit costs and implicit costs ?

Explicit or paid out costs are those expenses which are actually paid by the firm. Implicit costs are the theoretical costs in the sense that they go unrecognized by the accounting system.

5. What are past costs and future costs ?

Past costs are the actual costs incurred in the past are generally contained in the financial accounts. Future costs are costs that are expected to occur in some future period or periods.

6. What are accounting costs and economic costs ?

Accounting costs are the actual outlay costs. Economic cost relate to the future,

7. What is direct and indirect cost ?

Direct cost are traceable cost or assignable cost are the ones that have direct relationship with a unit of operation like a product, a process or a product, or a department of the firm. On the otherhand, indirect costs or non traceable costs or common or non assignable costs are the costs whose course cannot be easily and definitely traced to the plant.

8. What are private costs and social costs ?

Private costs are those which are actually incurred or provided for the business activity by an individual or the business firm. Social costs on the otherhand are the total costs to the society on account of production of a good.

9. What are controllable and non controllable costs ?

Controllable costs are those which are capable of being controlled or regulated by the managers ant = d it can be used to assess the managerial efficiency in controlling the cost in his department. Non controllable costs are those which cannot be subjected to administrative controls and supervision.

10. What are replacement costs and original costs ?

Original costs or the historical costs are the costs paid for assets such as land, building, cost of plant, equipment and materials. Replacement costs are the costs that the firm incurs if it wants to replace or acquire the same assets now.

11. What is shut down cost and abandonment cost ?

Shutdown costs are costs in which the firm incurs if it temporarily stop its operation. Abandonment costs are the costs of retiring altogether a fixed asset from use.

16)what are incremental cost and marginal cost?

Incremental cost is important when dealing with decisions where discrete alternatives are to be compared.marginal cost deals with unity unit output.

17)what are the determinants of cost?

1) level of output

2) price of inputs.

3) size of plant

4) output stability

5) production lot size

6)level of capability utilization

7) technology

8) learning effect

9) breadth of product range.

10) geographical location

18) what are the two aspects in cost output relationships?

1) cost output relationship in short run.

2)cost output relationship in long run.

19) what are the terms involved in cost output relationship?

1) Average fixed cost.

2) Average variable cost.

3) Average total cost.

20) what is level of capacity utilization?

The higher the capacity utilization fixed cost per unit of output in bound to be low.

21) what is output stability?

Stability of output leads to savings in various kinds of hidden cost interruption and learning.

22)what is size of plants?

Production costs are usually lower in bigger plants than smaller plants.

23)what is cost?

Cost is the money spent on producing and selling a product to the customers.the cost of a product starts from the raw materials through production costs till selling costs include the cost in maintaining outlets.

24)what is the significance of cost in managerial decision making?

Study of costs is essential for making a choice from among the competing production plans. production decisions are not possible without their respective cost considerations.

25)what is price of input?

If the price of the raw materials labor, power increases then naturally the cost of production goes up.this cost of productions varies directly with the prices of inputs.

UNIT-IV

1) what are the two factors in pricing strategies?

1) external factors

2) internal factors

2)what are the external factors in pricing strategies?

i. The competition in the market

ii. The elasticity of supply and demand

iii. Trends of the market

iv. purchasing power of buyers.

v. government policies towards prices.

3)what are the two factors in pricing strategies?

1) The costs

2) Management policy towards the gross margin and the sales turnover

4)what are the determinants?

1)objectives of business

2)competition

3)product and promotional strategies

4)Nature of price sensitivity

5)influence of middle men

6)Routinisation of pricing

7)Government regulation

5)What is objectives of business?

The fundamental objective of a firm is to survive in the business and then thrive.The pricing strategy adopted by a firm is very much by these factors.

6)what is competition in pricing strategy?

To come out with a pricing policy that will be advantages to the firm,managers require a perfect understanding of the competitive environment in which the firm is placed.

7)what are product and promotional strategies?

i. product itself

ii. pricing

iii. promotion activities

iv. distribution of products through the channel to the consumer.

8)what is nature of price sensitivity?

We know that many factors contribute to the increase of price sensitivity,but managers should not ignore the factors that minimize price sensitivity .when designing pricing strategies.

9)what is influence of middlemen?

Middlemen are the ones who stock the finished product of the manufacturer to sell it to the customers.these are also called the channel for distribution.

10) What is routinization of price?

This strategy of pricing relies on the tried and trusted pricing strategies which the organization has followed all along. This pricing practice is often routinized but the extend varies from company to company and from product to product.

11) What is the government regulation in pricing?

Inorder to safeguard the interests of the public the government acts on their behalf to prevent the abuse of the monopolistic power and collusion among business.

12) Say some of the objectives of the pricing policy?

i. profit maximization.

ii. long term welfare of the firm.

iii. facing competition.

iv. flexibility to economic changes.

v. satisfying rate of returns.

13) What are the cost oriented pricing method?

i. cost plus pricing or full cost pricing.

ii.marginal cost pricing or incremental or direct cost pricing.

iii.target pricing or rate pricing.

iv. programme pricing.

14) What are the competition oriented pricing method?

i.going rate pricing.

ii.loss reader pricing.

iii.customery pricing.

iv.price leadership pricing.

v.trade association pricing.

vi.cyclical pricing.

vii.imitative pricing.

viii.turnover pricing.

15) What are the praising based methods?

i.administered pricing.

ii.dual pricing.

iii.price discrimination or differential pricing.

16) What are cost oriented pricing methods?

i) cost plus.

ii) marginal cost pricing.

iii) target pricing.

17) What is going rate pricing method?

In going rate pricing the emphasis is on the market situation unlike the full cost pricing where the emphasis was on costs.

18) What is leadership pricing method?

The pricing strategy is widely used in retailing buiness. Because the names has the word loss in it this policy may be confused with the pricing which results in losses.

19) What is customary pricing method?

In case of some products their prices get more or less. This does not happen due to deliberate action on the seller’s part but it happens as the results of the product prevailing in the market for a long period of time.

20) What is price leadership method?

In any industry, out of all the firms operating industry, atleast one firm will have its cost of production lower than all other firms.

21) What is trade association pricing method?

The kind of pricing arises out of an unsaid understanding agreement between the firms operating in the market.

22) What is the cycling pricing method?

The pricing method which is done to capitalize on the cycles of the season in nature and the cycle in the economy are known as cyclical pricing.

23) What is imitative pricing method?

It is very similar to the loss leader pricing method. This pricing policy is often used in retail business.

24) What is turnover pricing method?

Turnover is the word which denotes the sales of the product. The higher the turnover means higher the sales.

25) What is dual pricing method?

Usually the firms which produce essential commodities have part of their product under administrating pricing and part of the product is solid in the free market.

26) What is price?

Price is the source of revenue for the firm and it decides the health of the firm.the customer acceptance or rejection of a product is most of the time predominantly influenced by price.

27) What are the external factors influencing the précising decision?

i.the ccompetition in the market.

ii.the elasticity of supply and demand.

iii.trends of the market.

iv.purchasing power of buyers.

v.government policies towards prices.

UNIT-V

1) What is balanced sheet?

The balanced sheet provides the financial position of a company at any given point of time.

2) Say some of the important financial statements?

i.profit and loss account.

ii.balance sheet.

iv.fund flow statement.

3) What are the contents of a balance sheet?

i.assets

ii.liabilities.

4) Say some of the types of assets?

i.fixed assets.

ii.investments.

iii.current assets.

iv.loans and advances.

v.miscallaneous expenditure

5) What is fixed assets?

Their life period is very long, these are purchased for carrying out the operation in a company. Using this the company can generating revenue.

6) What is investment?

The long term and short term financial securities owned by a company comes under this category. Here lomg term investments means buying shares of the other companies.

7) What is current assets?

Any asset that can be converted into cash within one year of time is called as current asset. They would be converted into cash at the end of the operating cycle of a firm.

8) What are the items come under this current assets?

i.cash.

ii.debtors.

iii.inventories.

9) What is loans and advances?

It is the amont that a company loans to its employees, advances given to supplies, government contractors and other agencies it is also include prepaid expenses.

10) What are the types of liabilities?

i.share capital.

ii.resreves and surpluses.

iii.secured loans.

iv.unsecured loans.

v.current liabilities.

11) What is meant by share capital?

It includes both equity share capital and preference share capital. Equity share holders are the owners of a company they take risk and their dividend is not fixed but is case of preference share capital the dividend rate is fixed.

12) What is meant by Reserves and Surpluses?

It is nothing but the profit that is retained by accompany not by not paying it as dividend to the shareholders.

13) What are the types of reserves ?

i.revenue reserve.

ii.caapital reserve.

14) What is meant by secured loans?

Loan amount borrowed by the firm by pledging assets (ie) securities are provided for these loans.

15) What is meant by unsecured loans?

In this case nosecurity is provided examples are fixed deposits, loans and advances.

16) What is meant by current liabilities?

This consists of amount that is to the suppliers when goods are purchased on a credit basis, advance payments received accured expenses, provisions for tax.

17) What is meant by income statement?

The companies act does not any particular way in which the profit and loss account or the income statement has to be prepared. This statement reflects the performance of a company over a period of time.

18) Who are all the users of financial statement?

i.management.

ii.shareholders, investors, anlyst.

iii.lenders

iv.suppliers.

v.customers.

vi.employees.

vii.government and regularity agencies.

viii.others

19) What is meant by cash flow statement?

A firm would enter into trouble if it spends more cash than it is able to generate. The firm should generate adequate capital for it survival.

20) How the cash flow of a business can be classified?

a. operating activities

b. investing activities

c. financing activities

21)what is meant by ratio analysis?

It is one of the powerful tool for financial statement analysis. Ratio is nothing but the relationship between two or more items.

22) What are the different ways of carrying out analysis?

a. past ratio

b. competitors ratio

c. industrial ratio

d. projected ratio

23) What is meant by past ratio?

The current financial years ratios can be compared with the previous years ratio to find whether the financial position has improved over the years or not.

24) What is meant by competitor’s ratio?

The ratio of a company can be compared with the ratio of the competitors and with the market leader.

25) What is meant by industry ratio?

The ratios of a firm can be compared with the ratios of the industry to which the particular firm belongs to.