Reference no: EM131710117

Question: Recently the European Community (EC) decided to lower its subsidies to makers of pasta. In deciding by what amount to reduce total subsidies, experiments were carried out for determining the possible reduction in exports, mainly to the United States, that would result from the subsidy reduction. Over a small range of values, economists wanted to test whether there is a positive correlation between level of subsidy and level of exports. A computer simulation of the economic variables involved in the pasta exports market was carried out. The results follow. Assuming that the simulation is an accurate description of reality and that the values obtained may be viewed as a random sample of the populations of possible outcomes, state whether you believe that a positive rank correlation exists between subsidy level and exports level over the short range of values studied.

Subsidy(millions of dollar/year):      5.1    5.3     5.2     4.9     4.8      4.7    4.5     5.0     4.6    4.4     5.4

Exports(millions of dollar/year):       22     30      35      29      27       36     40      39      42     45       21