We will use the 1-Sample t-test to investigate the population mean for measures of the economy. The data here is for the UK Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is often used as a measure of the health of an economy. We will test to see if the percentage growth of GDP per quarter for the UK is equal to zero.
The data for this example was obtained from the Guardian newspaper's website and can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/nov/25/gdp-uk-1948-growth-economy.
A direct link to the Google Docs spreadsheet is provided at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbcGhOdG0zTG1EWkVPX1k1VWR6LTd1U3c#gid=10.
Enter the results shown in the following screenshot into the worksheet. The UK GDP file1.mtw
file is also provided on the Packt Publishing website at http://www.packtpub.com/support.
The percentages given in the previous screenshot are rounded figures. To obtain a more precise estimate...