A contractor wants to forecast the number of contracts in future quarters, using quarterly data on number of contracts during the 10-year period from 1997 to 2006. Which of the following would be the most appropriate analysis to perform?
A) autoregressive modeling
B) one-way ANOVA
C) least-squares forecasting with monthly or quarterly data
D) two-way ANOVA

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

To forecast the number of contracts in future quarters, the most appropriate analysis would be least-squares forecasting with monthly or quarterly data. Autoregressive modeling is used to forecast time series data, but it requires a specific type of correlation structure which may not be present in the data. One-way ANOVA and two-way ANOVA are used to analyze the differences between groups or factors, and are not appropriate for forecasting time series data. Therefore, the most suitable approach would be forecasting using historical data through using least-squares regression.

A Contractor Wants to Forecast the Number of Contracts in Future