Question

a widget production manager knows that as the rate of widget production goes up on her assembly line, the number of defective widgets also goes up. she computes the regression line used to predict the number of defectives from the production rate. the slope b of this regression line is likely to be

Answer 1

The slope b of the regression line predicting the number of defective widgets from production rate is likely to be positive, reflecting the direct correlation between increased production and higher number of defects.

Step-by-step explanation:

The slope b of the regression line which is used to predict the number of defective widgets from the production rate is likely to be positive. Since the production manager knows that as the rate of widget production increases, so does the number of defective widgets, this positive relationship indicates that for every unit increase in the rate of production, there is a corresponding increase in the number of defective widgets.

It's important to differentiate the slope of the regression line, which illustrates the relationship between production rate and defects, from other uses of slope in production, such as in determining the rate of trade-offs in a production possibilities curve (which could be negative), or the costs of production in relation to the number of workers and wages.