Economics homework
Caiden
assignment.pdf
MEQA Assignment 2
You recently started working for OmiCon, a commercial real estate developer, and have been given
a position working directly for Sophie Reynolds, OmiCon’s CEO. When you meet Sophie for the first
time, she gives you a project she wants you to complete by the end of the week.
Sophie explains that OmiCon is thinking about leasing a parcel of land to build a shopping center.
OmiCon would own and operate the shopping center and generate revenue by renting space to
retailers. Sophie would like you do some work on the project. Specifically, she would like you to
complete the following tasks:
1. Determine the optimal size of the shopping center (to the nearest 100 square meters)
based on existing estimates of the demand for retail space.
2. Determine the most OmiCon should be willing to pay to lease the land for the expected life of
the project.
3. Calculate the profit under each possible demand curve with the optimum size of the shopping center.
4. Determine if it is worth hiring a local consultant, Pete Berry, to do some additional market
research that would provide a better estimate of the demand for retail space.
5. Write a short report summarizing the results of your analysis and any recommendations. Sophie tells you that Bob Bilkington, a former OmiCon employee, did some preliminary work on the
project, but left the organization before wrapping things up. Sophie says that you should have
complete confidence in any work Bob did on the project and that you should use his findings and
assumptions as a starting point for your analysis. In fact, Sophie has reviewed Bob’s notes and quickly
summarizes the key information she thinks you’ll need for your analysis.
Specifically, she tells you that Bob thought the shopping center would take one year to build and would last 20 years. He
estimated that it would cost $100 per square meter to build and that the annual operations and
maintenance costs would be $1 per square meter of floor space.
Bob thought that the parcel of land would be large enough to build a shopping center with as much as 60,000 square meters of retail space. He also thought that OmiCon should make a one‐
time upfront payment to lease the parcel of land for the expected 20‐year life of the project.
Bob thought the amount retailers in the shopping center would be willing to pay per square meter of floor space would be a decreasing function of the total size of the shopping center. Bob did
some initial work estimating the likely relationship between what tenants would be willing to pay
for retail space and the size of the shopping center. Specifically, he thought there was a 50%
chance the true relationship would be
60 0.001 and a 50% chance that the true relationship would be
50 0.001
where r is the rental rate per square meter of floor space and s is the total size of the shopping
center in square meters. Furthermore, Bob was going to assume that once the shopping
center had been built, the realized relationship between r and s would remain unchanged for
the next 20 years.
Bob was planning to ignore discount rates and the time value of money in his initial evaluation of the project. He was going to treat all of the project’s costs and benefits equally no matter when
they occurred in the life of the project; that is, he was going to treat a $1 cost incurred (or
revenue received) at the start of the project the same as a $1 cost incurred (or revenue received)
during any other year of the project’s life. At this point, you tell Sophie that doing this could lead
to misleading conclusions about the real value of the project and how much OmiCon should be
willing to pay to lease the land. Sophie agrees, but says she thinks this approach is good enough
for a preliminary evaluation. (HINT: Do not try to account for the time value of money in your
analysis. Simply treat all costs incurred [or revenues received] as equivalent no matter when they
occur. Doing so means you can calculate the total costs over the life of the project by simply
summing the costs incurred in each year. Similarly, you can calculate the total revenues received
over the life of the project by simply summing the revenues received in each year.)
Bob had contacted a local consultant, Pete Berry, who could do some additional market research to accurately forecast which of the demand curves (i.e., 60 0.001 or 50 0.001 ) would actually be realized if the shopping center was built. Bob was trying to find out if it was
worth hiring Pete at all, and if he could be hired then what was the maximum consulting fee that
Omicon should offer. (HINT: In the first scenario, if OmiCon were to hire Pete, OmiCon will build
a shopping center that is sized optimally for the demand curve that Pete identifies in his report.
For example, if Pete’s report says that the demand curve will be 60 0.001 then OmiCon will build a shopping center that optimally sized for that demand curve. Similarly, if Pete’s report
says that the demand curve will be 50 0.001 , then OmiCon will build a shopping center that is optimally sized for that demand curve. Nonetheless, a decision to hire Pete does not
affect the fact that there is still a 50% chance that the demand will actually turn out to be
60 0.001 and a 50% chance that the demand curve will actually turn out to be 50 0.001 .)
After briefing you on Bob’s findings, Sophie wishes you luck and says she looks forward to reading
your report in a week’s time. She tells you that the main body of the report must be short (i.e., 1000
words at most excluding the title page and any appendices), to the point, and not overly technical.
Nevertheless, your conclusions and recommendations must be based on a rigorous analysis of the
available information and you should provide a concise summary of any technical details in an
appendix. Sophie also tells you to be explicit about any important limitations your analysis might
have. Finally, Sophie tells you that she likes her reports to be broken up into sections with sensible
and self‐explanatory headings.
