The managers of a brokerage firm are interested in finding out if the number of new clients a broker brings into the firm affects the sales generated by the broker. They sample 12 brokers and determine the number of new clients they have enrolled in the last year and their sales amounts in thousands of dollars. These data are presented in the table that follows.


Broker Clients Sales
1 27 52
2 11 37
3 42 64
4 33 55
5 15 29
6 15 34
7 25 58
8 36 59
9 28 44
10 30 48
11 17 31
12 22 38

The is ________.

1 answer

It seems that you are trying to analyze whether the number of new clients a broker enrolls affects their sales, which will likely involve statistical analysis such as correlation or regression. Given the data provided for the brokers, "the" is likely referring to what kind of relationship or statistical measure you are investigating.

To fill in the blank appropriately, it could be:

  • "The relationship is positive, as an increase in new clients tends to lead to an increase in sales." (if that is what your analysis suggests).

or

  • "The correlation coefficient is __________." (if you have calculated it to determine the strength of the relationship).

If you need help calculating the correlation or regression analysis, please let me know!