Factor analysis

Safe drinking water is paramount to a healthy society. Close to a hundred contaminants are regulated by the government. Utilities are using chloramines to disinfect water to reduce harmful byproducts that may present themselves with the use of chlorine alone. Using chlorine and ammonia to disinfect, ammonia oxidizing bacteria can present themselves in an unsuspecting utilities distribution network.

This thesis focuses on factor analysis as a
technique. It thus includes a survey of the various
factor mode ls, their theory and mathematical development,
a survey of its previous use for empirical studies in
economics, and empirical tests of sensitivity of alternative factor techniques. From the results of the
sensitivity test it was concluded that different factor
techniques yield very similar results and that factor
techniques are of value for empirical studies in economics.