ABSTRACT
This Chapter summarizes the sources and availability of the raw data used in the study of Japanese and American automobile manufacturers. It describes the procedures used to transform the data into series required for the analysis. It also describes consumer demand, wholesale and transaction price, demand shift, dealer cost, manufacturer cost, instrumental and dummy variables. The chapter presents summary statistics of the variables which are referred to during the discussion of results. Quarterly data on disposable income and the Consumer Sentiment Index were provided by Data Resources, Inc. (DRI) for the period 1970:1 to 1986:4. DRI also provided monthly data on the interest rate on new car loans for the period 1971:6 to 1986:12. Data for all of these variables were collected for the years prior to the period of analysis since lagged values are required during model estimation. The data on factor demands and factor prices are only available as aggregates or averages for the firm and not for the type of vehicle produced.
