Question: Integrative Application Exercise
This text introduced you to the basics of descriptive statistics. Many of the business application problems, advanced business application problems, and cases will give you practice in performing descriptive statistical analysis. However, too often you are told which procedure you should use, or you can surmise which to use by the location of the exercise. It is important that you learn to identify the appropriate procedure on your own in order to solve problems for test purposes. But more important, this ability is essential throughout your career when you are required to select procedures for the tasks you will undertake. The following exercises will provide you with identification practice.
Excel tutorials The commercial banking industry is undergoing rapid changes due to advances in technology and competitive pressures in the financial services sector. The data file Banks contains selected information tabulated by Fortune concerning the revenues, profitability, and number of employees for the 51 largest U.S. commercial banks in terms of revenues. Use the information in this file to complete the following:
a. Compute the mean, median, and standard deviation for the three variables revenues, profits, and number of employees.
b. Convert the data for each variable to a z value. Consider Mellon Bank Corporation headquartered in Pittsburgh. How does it compare to the average bank in the study on the three variables? Discuss.
c. As you can see by examining the data and by looking at the statistics computed in part a, not all banks had the same revenue, same profit, or the same number of employees. Which variable had the greatest relative variation among the banks in the study?
d. Calculate a new variable: profits per employee. Develop a frequency distribution and a histogram for this new variable. Also compute the mean, median, and standard deviation for the new variable. Write a short report that describes the profits per employee for the banks.
e. Referring to part d, how many banks had a profitper-employee ratio that exceeded 2 standard deviations from the mean?