Chapter 43. Estimating Straight Line Relationships

Suppose you manage a plant that manufactures small refrigerators. National headquarters tells you how many refrigerators to produce each month. For budgeting purposes, you want to forecast your monthly operating costs. You have the following questions:

  • How can I determine the relationship between monthly production and monthly operating costs?

  • How accurately does this relationship explain the monthly variation in plant operating cost?

  • How accurate are my predictions likely to be?

  • When estimating a straight line relationship, which functions can I use to get the slope and intercept of the line that best fits the data?

Every business analyst should have the ability to estimate the relationship between ...

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