a. Discuss and compare the relative merits of time-series and structural economic forecasts.

b. Suppose a firm recently introduced cable television service into a rapidly growing city and surrounding suburbs in the Southwest. Which forecasting method might be most useful in predicting the total number of cable customers over the next five years?

c. A producer of cable programming (such as Home Box Office) seeks to forecast its number of subscribers over the same time period. Which method would you recommend? The following table lists your company's sales during the last four years. Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Sales 100 110 105 120 10 5 15

a. A fellow manager points to the 15-unit increase between year 3 and year