Shown below are rental and leasing revenue figures for office machinery and equipment in the United States over a sever-year period according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Use these data to run a linear regression and then forecast the rental and leasing revenue for the year 2012.

Question

Shown below are rental and leasing revenue figures for office machinery and equipment in the United States over a sever-year period according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Use these data to run a linear regression and then forecast the rental and leasing revenue for the year 2012.
2004 5,860
2005 6,632
2006 7,125
2007 6,000
2008 4,380
2009 3,326
2010 2,642

Steve · Answer

Just go to your favorite regression calculator, and if y(x) is the line estimating x years after 2004,

y = 7174.75 - 678.964x

So, for 2012,
y(8) = -972.77

It's not likely that we will get a negative value, and indeed we see that since the data rise and then fall, a linear model isn't very good in this case.

Tony · Answer

Y=71745-678.964x =6495.786 So for 2012, y (8) = -972.77