And now here we are…a Starbucks on nearly every corner. Even Homer Simpson had something to say about this in a recent episode! This is where I need your help. I would like you to perform a thorough analysis of the data involving the number of Starbucks locations. Our investors are interested to know about the rate of growth as well as to understand issues related to forecasting the number of Starbucks locations in the future. And specifically, we are wondering when the number of stores will reach 37,000 locations. You see, there are currently 37,000 McDonald’s restaurants worldwide, and we have set a goal to reach that number by the year 2020. Do you think we can do it?

1. identify the initial value and the growth rate of your exponential model and explain what they mean in context of Starbucks Stores. Put your explanations in a text box.
2. How well does the exponential function compare to the data from the Starbucks Company Time Line? Answer in a short paragraph in a text box.
3. Use your exponential model to predict when Starbucks will match McDonald’s for the number of locations.

a) Produce a histogram of the distribution of these prices. Comment on what this histogram reveals about the distribution. [Be sure to relate your comments to the context, and refer to the shape, center, variability, and outliers (if any).]

price

413 413 455 455 459 465 495 495 499 499 500 500 504 510 515 520 529 529 529 530 535 570 570 579 585 589 599 600 650 660 665 665 695 698 699 699 699 700 795 799 799 800 800 813 814 819 819 819 829 848 849 850 855 855 879 880 884 895 899 899 899 900 907 909 932 950 950 975 976 976 979 987 990 998 998 998 999 999 999 999 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1009 1019 1020 1020 1044 1045 1048 1049 1078 1080 1080 1080 1099 1099 1099 1100 1100 1139 1150 1167 1169 1169 1170 1175 1191 1198 1199 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1207 1220 1222 1250 1250 1253 1253 1253 1277 1282 1282 1285 1295 1295 1299 1325 1325 1345 1347 1360 1395 1395 1399 1399 1400 1449 1449 1450 1450 1450 1450 1450 1450 1465 1482 1485 1498 1499 1499 1499 1500 1500 1500 1500 1500 1515 1537 1539 1547 1547 1547 1550 1550 1550 1550 1551 1556 1563 1565 1568 1590 1595 1595 1599 1599 1599 1600 1600 1618 1622 1650 1650 1650 1672 1695 1698 1698 1699 1736 1754 1759 1760 1767 1780 1807 1870 1895 1979 1995

Could this be answered within excel + handwritten notes and thoroughly explained. Please and thank you

INTRODUCTION TO LINEAR CORRELATION AND REGRESSION ANALYSIS.

An economist with a major bank wants to learn, quantitatively, how much spending on luxury goods and services can be explained based on consumers’ perception about the current state of the economy and what do they expect in the near future (6 months ahead). Consumers, of all income and wealth classes, were surveyed. Every year, 1500 consumers were interviewed. The bank having all of the data from the 1500 consumers interviewed every year, computed the average level of consumer confidence (an index ranging from 0 to 100, 100 being absolutely optimistic) and computed the average dollar amount spent on luxuries annually. Below is the data shown for the last 24 years.

Date                X                     Y (in thousands of dollars)

1994                79.1                 55.6

1995                79                    54.8

1996                80.2                 55.4

1997                80.5                 55.9

1998                81.2                 56.4

1999                80.8                 57.3

2000                81.2                 57

2001                80.7                 57.5

2002                80.3                 56.9

2003                79.4                 55.8

2004                78.6                 56.1

2005                78.3                 55.7

2006                78.3                 55.7

2007                77.8                 55

2008                77.7                 54.4

2009                77.6                 54

2010                77.6                 56

2011                78.5                 56.7

2012                78.3                 56.3

2013                78.5                 57.2

2014                78.9                 57.8

2015                79.8                 58.7

2016                80.4                 59.3

2017                80.7                 59.9

Questions:

1. Do you think that measuring the level of optimism is a good predictor for trying to forecast future spending on luxury items? Explain why or why not.
2. How would you be able to improve on the model? You must provide a minimum of two specific ways to go about improving the model.
3. If the economist expects that, by year’s end, the average level of consumer confidence will hit 81.5 points, how much will be expected by consumers to spend on luxury items?

10.62 Lack of Controls over Investments. Follow the instructions preceding the case in problem 10.60. Write the audit approach section like the cases in the chapter. Rogue Trader In February 1989, 22-year-old Nicholas Leeson joined Barings Investment Bank. In 1993, he began trading on behalf of the Barings group as a “proprietary trader” on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX). By 1995, he had wiped out the 233-year-old bank, which had counted Queen Elizabeth as a client. He left behind liabilities totaling $1.3 billion. As a proprietary trader, Leeson was to arbitrage or take advantage of differences between the prices quoted for identical contracts on SIMEX and on other exchanges. This was supposed to be achieved by entering into matching purchase and sale contracts simultaneously to capture favorable price differences. Unfortunately, Leeson entered into very large contracts that were not matched with offsetting contracts, exposing the bank to enormous potential losses from even small market movements. These trades were hidden in a separate account: 88888. Transactions were transferred from other Barings accounts into account 88888 to artificially generate a profit for the other accounts.

During the period, Barings was reorganizing and Leeson reported to local managers in Singapore and product managers in London. Neither set of managers checked Leeson’s activities. An internal audit report had criticized the reporting structure, but its recommendations were never implemented. Funds to finance Leeson’s trades were requested from him to ostensibly fund client positions and were recorded as receivables from clients. The credit control group never reviewed the creditworthiness of the clients because they said they were never informed of the remittances. Leeson’s managers accepted reports of his profitability with admiration. They did not question the unusually large profits from his trading that would have been unlikely from an arbitrage operation.

Fill in the blank with the answer. Each answer in the list may be used more than once or not at all.

a.Separate and proportionate

b.Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO)

c.Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

d.Fraud

e.Negligence

f.Reasonable professional care

g.Gross negligence

h.Securities Act of 1933

i.Compensatory damages

j.Damages

k.Criminal victim compensation

l.Punitive damages

m.Hochfelder

n.Ultramares

o.Privity

p.Near privity

q.Standing

r.Deposition

s.Constructive fraud

t.Breach of contract

u.Joint and severally

v.Securities Exchange Act of 1934

_____1.A federal statute used for legal action related to the initial offering of securities to the public by a company.

_____2.Absence of the level of care that an auditor owes to another party that has privity with the auditor.

_____3.Prior to SOX, the first federal statute requiring companies to have a functioning internal control system.

_____4.The federal statute that does not require the plaintiff to prove that he or she relied on the financial statements to be able to obtain a judgment against the auditor.

_____5.A case that established that fraud on the part of the auditor is required for an injured party to collect damages under 10b-5 of the 1934 Act.

_____6.Cause of action which plaintiffs without privity have not been successful at using to obtain the remedy of specific performance.

_____7.A judgment for the return of the loss the plaintiff experienced.

_____8.Liability theory that is now used for federal civil cases against accountants and auditors based on the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

_____9.When a state law does not specify the concept of gross negligence, this is the legal concept that is likely used.

_____10.The motivation for a plaintiff to allege gross negligence.

_____11.Can result in treble damages.

_____12.Typically requires the auditor to commit fraud before there will be a finding and judgment against the auditor.

_____13.Often a part of the process of discovery.

_____14.Requires that the offending party’s behavior must have been intentional (scienter).

‘Applecore’ is one of the leading management consultancy firms in the UK since early 2000 and they have an enviable track record among a diverse clientele across several major industries in the region. You have recently joined Applecore as a management consultant and your firm, on the basis of a good reference from another long-standing client of yours, has received a call from a large automobile manufacturer to go and meet them for discussions to explore if your firm can take up a major consultancy work for them in the background as below.

The automobile manufacturer performed extremely well since its inception in 1995 but in the last 3-4 years they have been posting continuously disappointing results owing to the increasing competition from imported brands, a somber growth of the economy and a variety of other reasons. The manufacturer realized they cannot continue with this kind of a performance for long for reasons of diminishing profitability and hence are planning to hire one of the leading management consulting firms to undertake a consultancy work in the hope that the consultancy firm would be able to do a rigorous study of their value chain and come up with feasible solutions for restoring their profitability and set them back on a promising future track.

This automobile manufacturer, new to Applecore, is assigned to you as your new client by your firm and your immediate job is to initiate the first meeting with them to understand their requirements, make an effective pitch to bag the consultancy contract in the light of stiff competition coming from other good leading consultancy firms also vying for the same contract. You are further expected to work and deliver on the project within challenging timeframes.

         In the background of the above case, answer questions 3 and 4 below:

Q1. As a management consultant, how will you go about bagging and delivering the project?

Q2. Considering the nature of the consultancy assignment that requires in-depth value analysis, what and how will you apply/use an appropriate analytical model to the client’s business?

Use the data and Excel to answer this question. It contains the United States Census Bureau’s estimates for World Population from 1950 to 2014. You will find a column of dates and a column of data on the World Population for these years. Generate the time variable t. Then run a regression with the Population data as a dependent variable and time as the dependent variable. Have Excel report the residuals.

(a) Based on the ANOVA table and t-statistics, does the regression appear significant?

(b) Calculate the Durbin-Watson Test statistic. Is there a serial correlation problem with the data? Explain.

(d) What affect might your answer in part (b) have on your conclusions in part (a)?

Thanks id advance! Will try to rate the answer ASAP. Please show your process too :)

1. List the major entities identified in the table above

2. After examining the table carefully identify candidate keys. Remember from the lecture that a candidate key field has to be unique, but should not hold private information that might compromise person's identity. For example SSN is unique and can be used to determine student information, so it is a candidate key, but using SSN might compromise student security for that it will not be used as primary key. The combination of first name and last name is not unique and cannot be used as a candidate key. Once the candidate keys been identified, some will be as primary keys and will be used to normalize the table. To connect the tables, the primary key of one table can be used as a foreign key in the other.

. The meat packing company gives you the following assumptions: Price of beef=$2; price of pork=$2.50; disposable income=$1,000,000; and population=225. Given this information, use model 1 to complete the following: a. Estimate of beef demand and a 95% confidence interval around this estimate. b. Estimate total revenue c. Estimate the following elasticities: Price elasticity, Cross elasticity (that is, elasticity with respect to Pork price), income elasticity, and population elasticity. d. Should the meat packing company increase or decrease the price of beef? Why or why not?