Question 16.47

16.47 French tourism economy.

Ski resort activities make up nearly 20% of the French tourism economy. The French ski resort economy is under pressure to remain competitive in light of new entrants to the ski resort market, which are less expensive (for example, Slovenia and Montenegro). A research study was conducted to assess the productivity and efficiency of French ski resorts.15 The study examined the productivity of 64 French ski resorts with the Luenberger Productivity Indicator (LPI) over a two-year time frame. LPI as an overall measure of productivity is commonly used by economists because it can be decomposed into the usual constituents of productivity growth: technological chang and efficiency change. A positive LPI indicates an increase in productivity, while a negative LPI indicates a decrease in productivity. The researcher of this study wished to investigate the relationship between the ski resorts' size and productivity. Ski resorts in the study were classified as being "large" (level 1), "medium" (level 2), or "small" (level 3).

ski

16-28

  1. What are the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis? Explain why a nonparametric procedure would be appropriate in this setting.
  2. Use the Kruskal-Wallis test to compare LPI across the three size classifications of ski resorts. Write a brief statement of your findings.

16.47

(a) H0: LPIs have the same distribution in all groups. Ha: LPIs are systematically higher in some groups than in others. The standard deviations for the three sizes are very different. (b) , There are significant differences in LPI across different resort sizes.