The Sixth Edition of Business Forecasting is the most practical forecasting book on the market with the most powerful software—Forecast X. This edition presents a broad-based survey of business forecasting methods including subjective and objective approaches. As always, the author team of Wilson and Keating deliver practical how-to forecasting techniques, along with dozens of real world data sets while theory and math are held to a minimum. This Sixth Edition includes Forecast X software updated for Excel 2007 and Vista. Forecast X is the most comprehensive software tool available in this market and the new version is also backwards compatible for XP Excel 2003 systems. This Excel-based tool effectively uses wizards and many tools to make forecasting easy and understandable.

This book covers essential elements of building and understanding regression models within the context of business and economics. It is a nonmathematical treatment that is accessible, even to readers with limited statistical backgrounds. It is useful for business professionals, MBA students and others who seek to understand regression analysis without having to work through tedious mathematical and statistical theory. The importance of using regression models in modern business and economic analysis can hardly be overstated.

In this book we describe exactly how such models can be developed and evaluated. The data used is real data with real world business applications, not data that has been contrived to demonstrate some purely academic point. These data are likely to be encountered and used in the actual world of business. In an appendix using screen shots and step by step instructions, we include how to do use Excel to perform regression analysis. When readers have completed this book they will understand how to build basic mathematical models illustrating business/economic relationships using regression analysis. In addition, they will know how to interpret and evaluate regression models using a five step process (which includes evaluating the model; identifying its statistical significance; determining its explanatory power; for time-series applications, identifying how the error terms are distributed; and understanding the concept of multicollinearity). Readers will understand what is possible and what to look for in evaluating regression models. It is unlikely that most readers will build such models in the course of carrying out their own professional responsibilities, but it is very likely that they will, at some point in their careers, be exposed to such models. This book will help such readers understand models that someone else has developed.

CBA is an attempt to fully account for all costs associated with a new proposal along with a detailed calculation of specific private and public benefits. Properly employed, CBA is simply a method for assessing a proposal prior to a collective decision by calculating net benefits relative to an alternative project or the default option of doing nothing.

Cost benefit analysis (CBA) guidelines exist in the form of highly theoretical, mathematically complex handbooks published by international and national organizations. These reports are generally beyond the scope of local decision makers entrusted with evaluation of small municipal projects. This work is an attempt to fill the gap between national and international manuals, on the one hand, and the need of local officials to perform or interpret CBA studies out-sourced to consultants, on the other. Because standard statistical packages, spreadsheets, and graphical analyses are more accessible than at any previous time, CBA, as a tool, is more accessible for informing decisions made in the public interest.

We assume that there is some optimal amount for public good provision that reflects, to the degree possible, resident taxpayers' willingness to pay. Our goal is four-fold: to discuss the economic underpinnings of cost benefit analysis, to address measurement problems associated with shadow pricing of public goods, to outline potential pitfalls for the non-specialist, and, finally, to present and explain a CBA template in reference to three cases relevant to local government decision making.

The Sixth Edition of Business Forecasting is the most practical forecasting book on the market with the most powerful software—Forecast X. This edition presents a broad-based survey of business forecasting methods including subjective and objective approaches. As always, the author team of Wilson and Keating deliver practical how-to forecasting techniques, along with dozens of real world data sets while theory and math are held to a minimum. This Sixth Edition includes Forecast X software updated for Excel 2007 and Vista. Forecast X is the most comprehensive software tool available in this market and the new version is also backwards compatible for XP Excel 2003 systems. This Excel-based tool effectively uses wizards and many tools to make forecasting easy and understandable.

This book covers essential elements of building and understanding regression models within the context of business and economics. It is a nonmathematical treatment that is accessible, even to readers with limited statistical backgrounds. It is useful for business professionals, MBA students and others who seek to understand regression analysis without having to work through tedious mathematical and statistical theory. The importance of using regression models in modern business and economic analysis can hardly be overstated.

In this book we describe exactly how such models can be developed and evaluated. The data used is real data with real world business applications, not data that has been contrived to demonstrate some purely academic point. These data are likely to be encountered and used in the actual world of business. In an appendix using screen shots and step by step instructions, we include how to do use Excel to perform regression analysis. When readers have completed this book they will understand how to build basic mathematical models illustrating business/economic relationships using regression analysis. In addition, they will know how to interpret and evaluate regression models using a five step process (which includes evaluating the model; identifying its statistical significance; determining its explanatory power; for time-series applications, identifying how the error terms are distributed; and understanding the concept of multicollinearity). Readers will understand what is possible and what to look for in evaluating regression models. It is unlikely that most readers will build such models in the course of carrying out their own professional responsibilities, but it is very likely that they will, at some point in their careers, be exposed to such models. This book will help such readers understand models that someone else has developed.

CBA is an attempt to fully account for all costs associated with a new proposal along with a detailed calculation of specific private and public benefits. Properly employed, CBA is simply a method for assessing a proposal prior to a collective decision by calculating net benefits relative to an alternative project or the default option of doing nothing.

Cost benefit analysis (CBA) guidelines exist in the form of highly theoretical, mathematically complex handbooks published by international and national organizations. These reports are generally beyond the scope of local decision makers entrusted with evaluation of small municipal projects. This work is an attempt to fill the gap between national and international manuals, on the one hand, and the need of local officials to perform or interpret CBA studies out-sourced to consultants, on the other. Because standard statistical packages, spreadsheets, and graphical analyses are more accessible than at any previous time, CBA, as a tool, is more accessible for informing decisions made in the public interest.

We assume that there is some optimal amount for public good provision that reflects, to the degree possible, resident taxpayers' willingness to pay. Our goal is four-fold: to discuss the economic underpinnings of cost benefit analysis, to address measurement problems associated with shadow pricing of public goods, to outline potential pitfalls for the non-specialist, and, finally, to present and explain a CBA template in reference to three cases relevant to local government decision making.