Story Name: Predicting Appliance Sales Story

Abstract: The file gives annual unit factory shipments of dishwashers, disposals,
refrigerators, and washing machines in the United States from 1960 through 1985
together with two potential predictor series, durable goods expenditures and
private residential investment. The data for each series in 1986 were as follows:
Dishwashers 3915 Disposals 4253 Regrigerators 6511 Washing machines 5766 Durable
goods expenditures 208.2 Residential Investment 67.2 The data provide the student
with the opportunity to compare different methods for estimating 1986 appliance
sales. These may include 1) projecting a trend of sales, 2) using mean first
difference, 3) projecting a regression of sales on either economic indicator, and
4) projecting the regression of sales first differences on either economic
indicator's first differences. Comparison of results should include a measure of
expected error (residuals) and a test of independence of successive errors
(residuals). The 1986 values are to be treated as known to estimate unknown
values of appliance sales.

Reference: Business Statistics, U.S. Department of Commerce Authorization: free
use Description: The file gives unit shipments of dishwashers, disposers,
refrigerators, and washers in the United States from 1960 to 1985. This and other
data are published currently in the Department of Commerce's Survey of Current
Business, and are summarized from time to time in their publication, Business
Statistics. Also included in the file are durable goods expenditures and private
residential investment in the United States. Number of cases: 26 Variable Names:

1.YEAR: 1960 to 1985
2.DISH: Factory shipments (domestic) of dishwashers (thousands)
3.DISP: Factory shipments (domestic) of disposers (thousands)
4.FRIG: Factory shipments (domestic) of refrigerators (thousands)
5.WASH: Factory shipments (domestic) of washing machines (thousands)
6.DUR: Durable goods expenditures (billions of 1972 dollars)
7.RES: Private residential investment (billions of 1972 dollars)

The Data:

YEAR DISH DISP FRIG WASH DUR RES

1960 555 760 3475 3274 51.4 34.2
1961 620 800 3480 3347 49.3 34.3
1962 720 890 3775 3666 54.7 37.7
1963 880 1090 4125 3949 59.7 42.5
1964 1050 1300 4545 4190 64.8 43.1
1965 1290 1355 4870 4347 72.6 42.7
1966 1528 1410 4974 4406 78.4 38.2
1967 1586 1356 4713 4323 79.5 37.1
1968 1960 1812 5150 4482 88.3 43.1
1969 2118 1943 5296 4378 91.8 43.6
1970 2116 1976 5286 4093 89.1 41.0
1971 2477 2292 5691 4608 98.2 53.7
1972 3199 2771 6315 5107 111.1 63.8
1973 3702 2974 6774 5504 121.3 62.3
1974 3320 2553 5982 4948 112.3 48.2
1975 2702 2080 4577 4228 112.7 42.2
1976 3140 2515 4817 4492 126.6 51.2
1977 3356 2941 5707 4933 138.0 60.7
1978 3558 3312 5890 5038 146.8 62.4
1979 3488 3317 5701 4965 147.2 59.1
1980 2738 2960 5124 4550 137.5 47.1
1981 2484 3179 4944 4365 141.2 44.7
1982 2170 2780 4364 4019 139.8 37.8
1983 3092 3662 5312 4615 156.2 52.7
1984 3491 4087 5994 5049 177.9 60.3
1985 3536 4107 6018 5231 192.7 61.4