Altman and Kishore (1996), in the course of a study on the recovery rates on defaulted bonds, investigated the recovery of utility bonds versus other bonds, stratified by seniority. The following table excerpts their findings.

This is the average price at default and is a measure of recovery rate.

Source: Altman and Kishore (1996, table 5).

Assume that the populations (recovery rates of utilities, recovery rates of non-utilities) are normally distributed and that the samples are independent. The population variances are unknown; do not assume they are equal. The test hypotheses are H0: 1 2 = 0 versus Ha: 1 2 0, where 1 is the population mean recovery rate for utilities and 2 is the population mean recovery rate for non-utilities.

Calculate the test statistic.

Determine whether to reject the null hypothesis at the 0.01 significance level without reference to degrees of freedom.

Calculate the degrees of freedom

ANSWER ASAP PLEASE!!

Recovery Rates by Seniority Industry Group Ex-Utilities Sample Industry Group/ Number of Average Standard Number of Average Standard Seniority Observations Price Deviation Observations Price Deviation Public Utilities Senior Unsecured 32 $77.74 $18.06 189 $42.56 $24.89