Opinion polling procedures allow for reasonable inferences about attitude changes. We examined this contention using surveys about the nomination of Clarence Thomas. In this situation, prior theory allowed us to predict the direction of changes, surveys had been conducted by a number of...

A literature review suggested that behavioral changes occur more rapidly when the learner assumed responsibility. Natural learning, an approach to help learners assume responsibility, was compared with the traditional strategy in seven field experiments. It produced more than twice as many...

Snapshots from Hell describes a first-year student<92>s experience in the Stanford Master of Business Administration (MBA) program in 1989. Peter Robinson, formerly a speech writer for President Reagan, tells about his experiences in applying to business schools, living with other MBA students,...</92>

Causal forces are a way of summarizing forecasters<92> expectations about what will happen to a time series in the future. Contrary to the common assumption for extrapolation, time series are not always subject to consistent forces that point in the same direction. Some are affected by conflicting...</92>

Previous research has shown that seasonal factors provide one of the most important ways to improve forecast accuracy. For example, in forecasts over an 18-month horizon for 68 monthly economic series from the M-Competition, Makridakis et al. (1984, Table 14) found that seasonal adjustments...

Ray Fair is one of my favorite econometricians. He has an excellent website, fairmodel.econ.yale.edu, where he freely shares his models. He writes clearly and his methods are reported in detail. He is concerned with the proper use of econometric methods. For example, he has long been opposed to...

Those making environmental decisions must not only characterize the present, they must also forecast the future. They must do so for at least two reasons. First, if a no-action alternative is pursued, they must consider whether current trends will be favorable or unfavorable in the future....

Romer (1993) suggests that universities should undertake experiments that would test the value of mandatory attendance for economics courses. He presents evidence showing that those who attended his classes received higher grades on his exams and concluded that ^San important part of the...

Formal education can be improved by transferring responsibility from the teacher to the learner. A simple approach to this is the time contract. Time contracts have been used successfully in nine quasi-experiments but, despite these successes, some educators see this as subversive research.

Research on forecasting is extensive and includes many studies that have tested alternative methods in order to determine which ones are most effective. We review this evidence in order to provide guidelines for forecasting for marketing. The coverage includes intentions, Delphi, role playing,...