Year Quarter Starts front 274 front 2 374 front 3 341 front A GRE LULL 293 LULL 2 386 LULL 3 361 LULL A 319 202 304 on 406 on 3 ALL on A 7 7 2004 345...

Quarterly single-family housing starts

The quarterly numbers of single-family housing starts (in thousands of dwellings) in the United States from 2001 through 2005 are recorded in the table (some of the data is shown).

a.   Using Quarter 1, 2001, as a base period, calculate the simple index for this quarterly time series.

b.   Interpret the simple index for Quarter 2, 2004.

c.    By what percentage did the number of housing starts increase between Quarter 1, 2001, and Quarter 4, 2005?

d.   By what percentage did the number of housing starts increase between Quarter 1, 2003, and Quarter 4,2005?