A stockbroker is interested in the factors influencing the rate of return on the common stock of banks. For a sample of 30 banks, the following regression was estimated by least squares:
$$
\begin{aligned}
& \hat{y}=2.37+\underset{(0.39)}{0.84 x_1}+\underset{(0.12)}{0.15 x_2}-\underset{(0.09)}{0.13 x_3} \\
& +1.67 x_4 \quad R^2=0.317 \\
&
\end{aligned}
$$
where
$y=$ percentage rate of return on common stock of bank
$x_1=$ percentage rate of growth of bank's earnings
$x_2=$ percentage rate of growth of bank's assets
$x_3=$ loan losses as percentage of bank's assets
$x_4=1$ if bank head office is in New York City and 0 otherwise
The numbers below the coefficients are the coefficient standard errors.
a. Interpret the estimated coefficient on $x_4$.
b. Interpret the coefficient of determination, and use it to test the null hypothesis that, taken as a group, the four independent variables do not linearly influence the dependent variable.
c. Let $e_i$ denote the residuals from the fitted regression and $\hat{y}_i$ the in-sample predicted values of the dependent variable. The least squares regression of $e_i^2$ on $\hat{y}_i$ yielded coefficient of determination 0.082 . What can be concluded from this finding?