Answer to Question #57298 in Statistics and Probability for Bob

Question

Consider the following annual series on the number of people assisted by a county’s human resources department.

Year: People:
1 22
2 24
3 28
4 24
5 22
6 24
7 20
8 26
9 24
10 28
11 26

a. What is the 3-year moving average for period 4?
b. What is the 3-year moving average forecast for period 12?
c. What is the Mean Square Error (MSE) for the 3-year moving average?
d. Using a smoothing constant of 0.4, what is the exponential smoothing value to be used as forecasts for period 4?
e. Using a smoothing constant of 0.4, what is the exponential smoothing value to be used as forecasts for period 12?
f. Using a smoothing constant of 0.4, what is the Mean Square Error (MSE) for exponential smoothing?

g. When comparing the accuracy of both forecasting techniques (3-year moving average and exponential smoothing with a 0.4 smoothing constant) we can conclude that