Forecasting Models: Their Development and Implications for Decision Making.

Although forecasts have been prepared and used by business firms for many years, a theory of forecasts has only recently taken shape in the literature of statistic, operations research, and management science. In describing the nature of these developments, we shall emphasize their relation to decision-making processes, as distinct with budgeting and other goal-setting procedures. We shall be concerned with forecasts solely as information going into a centralized decision-making machine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]