An economist wonders if corporate productivity in some countries is more volatile than that in other countries. One measure of a company’s productivity is annual percentage yield based on total company assets. Data for this problem are based on information taken from Forbes Top Companies, edited by J. T. Davis. A random sample of leading companies in France gave the following percentage yields based on assets:

Use a calculator to verify that s² ≈ 2.044 for this sample of French companies.

Another random sample of leading companies in Germany gave the following percentage yields based on assets:

Use a calculator to verify that s² ≈ 1.038 for this sample of German companies.

Test the claim that there is a difference (either way) in the population variance of percentage yields for leading companies in France and Germany. Use a 5% level of signi­ficance. How could your test conclusion relate to the economist’s question regarding volatility (data spread) of corporate productivity of large companies in France compared with large companies in Germany?

please provide the following information.

(a) What is the level of signi­ficance? State the null and alternate hypotheses.

(b) Find the value of the sample F statistic. What are the degrees of freedom?

What assumptions are you making about the original distribution?

(c) Find or estimate the P-value of the sample test statistic.

(d) Based on your answers in parts (a) to (c), will you reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis?

(e) Interpret your conclusion in the context of the application.

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