Scenario Background:

A marketing company based out of New York City is doing well and is looking to expand internationally. The CEO and VP of Operations decide to enlist the help of a consulting firm that you work for to help collect data and analyze market trends.

You work for Mercer Human Resources. The Mercer Human Resource Consulting websitelists prices of certain items in selected cities worldwide. They also report an overall cost-of-living index for each city compared to the costs of hundreds of items in New York City (NYC). For example, London at 88.33 is 11.67% less expensive than NYC.

More specifically, if you choose to explore the website further, you will find a lot of fun and interesting data. You can explore the website more on your own after the course concludes.

https://mobilityexchange.mercer.com/Insights/cost-of-living-rankings#rankings

Guidance:

In the attachment, you will find the 2018 data for 17 cities in the data set Cost of Living. Included are the 2018 cost of living index, the cost of a 3-bedroom apartment (per month), the price of a monthly transportation pass, the price of a mid-range bottle of wine, the price of a loaf of bread (1 lb.), the price of a gallon of milk and price for a 12 oz. cup of black coffee. All prices are in U.S. dollars.

You use this information to run a Multiple Linear Regression to predict the Cost of living and calculate various descriptive statistics. This is given in the Excel output (that is, the MLR has already been calculated. Your task is to interpret the data).

Activity:

Based on this information, in which city should you open a second office in? You must justify your answer. If you want to recommend 2 or 3 different cities and rank them based on the data and your findings, this is also fine.

Things to Consider:

To help you make this decision, here are some things to consider:

• Based on the MLR output, what variable(s) is/are significant?
• From the significant predictors, review the mean, median, min, max, Q1, and Q3 values
  • It might be a good idea to compare these values to what the New York value is for that variable. Remember, New York is the baseline, as that is where headquarters are located.
• Based on the descriptive statistics, for the significant predictors, what city has the best potential?
  • What city or cities fall below the median?
  • What city or cities are in the upper 3^rd quartile?

City Cost of Living Index Rent (in City Centre) Monthly Public Trans Pass Loaf of Bread Milk Bottle of Wine (mid-range) Coffee Mumbai 31.74 $1,642.68 $7.66 $0.41 $2.93 $10.73 $1.63 Prague 50.95 $1,240.48 $25.01 $0.92 $3.14 $5.46 $2.17 Warsaw 45.45 $1,060.06 $30.09 $0.69 $2.68 $6.84 $1.98 Athens 63.06 $569.12 $35.31 $0.80 $5.35 $8.24 $2.88 Rome 78.19 $2,354.10 $41.20 $1.38 $6.82 $7.06 $1.51 Seoul 83.45 $2,370.81 $50.53 $2.44 $7.90 $17.57 $1.79 Brussels 82.2 $1,734.75 $57.68 $1.66 $4.17 $8.24 $1.51 Madrid 66.75 $1,795.10 $64.27 $1.04 $3.63 $5.89 $1.58 Vancouver 74.06 $2,937.27 $74.28 $2.28 $7.12 $14.38 $1.47 Paris 89.94 $2,701.61 $85.92 $1.56 $4.68 $8.24 $1.51 Tokyo 92.94 $2,197.03 $88.77 $1.77 $6.46 $17.75 $1.49 Berlin 71.65 $1,695.77 $95.34 $1.24 $3.52 $5.89 $1.71 Amsterdam 85.9 $2,823.28 $105.93 $1.33 $4.34 $7.06 $1.71 New York 100 $5,877.45 $121.00 $2.93 $3.98 $15.00 $0.84 Sydney 90.78 $3,777.72 $124.55 $1.94 $4.43 $14.01 $2.26 Dublin 87.93 $3,025.83 $144.78 $1.37 $4.31 $14.12 $2.06 London 88.33 $4,069.99 $173.81 $1.23 $4.63 $10.53 $1.90 mean 75.49 $2,463.12 $78.01 $1.47 $4.71 $10.41 $1.76 median 82.2 $2,354.10 $74.28 $1.37 $4.34 $8.24 $1.71 min 31.74 $569.12 $7.66 $0.41 $2.68 $5.46 $0.84 max 100 $5,877.45 $173.81 $2.93 $7.90 $17.75 $2.88 Q1 66.75 $1,695.77 $41.20 $1.04 $3.63 $7.06 $1.51 Q3 88.33 $2,937.27 $105.93 $1.77 $5.35 $14.12 $1.98 New York 100 $5,877.45 $121.00 $2.93 $3.98 $15.00 $0.84