The American Bankruptcy Institute and the National Bankruptcy Research Center monitor the number of business bankruptcy filings each quarter. The table below lists the number of business bankruptcy filings for each quarter of a recent 2-year period.

a. Explain why the data in the table represent time series data.

b. Construct a time series plot for the quarterly number of bankruptcy filings.

c. Do you detect a trend in the time series plot? Explain.

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Year 2011 2012 Quarter 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 Number of Bankruptcies 12,376 12,304 11,705 11,149 10,998 10,374 9,248 9,231