A Firm Practicing Unrelated Diversification Can Make Better Capital Allocations

question 35

Multiple Choice

A firm practicing unrelated diversification can make better capital allocations to its subsidiary businesses than the external capital market can for all the following reasons EXCEPT:

• A) corporate headquarters can allocate capital according to more specific criteria than is possible with external market allocations.
• B) corporate headquarters has more complete information about the subsidiary businesses than the external capital market.
• C) the firm can acquire other firms with innovative products instead of allocating capital to research and development.
• D) corporate headquarters can more effectively discipline underperforming management teams through resource allocation than can the external market.

---

Definitions:

Diseconomies of Scale

A condition in which a company or business grows so large that the costs per unit increase.

Marginal Cost Curve

A graph that shows the change in the total cost of producing one additional unit of a product or service.

Average Total Cost

the total cost of production divided by the number of units produced, reflecting the average cost per unit of output.

Average Variable Cost

The total variable costs of production divided by the number of units produced, indicating the variable cost per unit.