Accounting Today identified the top accounting firms in 10 geographic regions across the United States. All 10 regions reported growth in 2014. The Southeast and Gulf Coast regions reported growth of 12.36% and 5.8%, respectively. A characteristic description of the accounting firms in the Southeast and Gulf Coast regions included the number of partners in the firm. Assuming that the population variances from both offices are equal. a. At the 0.01 level of significance, is there evidence of a difference between Southeast region accounting firms and Gulf Coast accounting firms with respect to the mean number of partners?
b. Determine the p-value and interpret its meaning.
c. What assumptions do you have to make about the two populations in order to justify the use of the t test?

Region Number of Partners
Southeast 173
Southeast 54
Southeast 42
Southeast 53
Southeast 26
Southeast 11
Southeast 38
Southeast 39
Southeast 31
Southeast 22
Southeast 9
Southeast 34
Southeast 10
Southeast 19
Gulf Coast 120
Gulf Coast 100
Gulf Coast 22
Gulf Coast 22
Gulf Coast 38
Gulf Coast 29
Gulf Coast 16
Gulf Coast 22
Gulf Coast 17
Gulf Coast 14
Gulf Coast 12
Gulf Coast 9
Gulf Coast 10
Gulf Coast 5
Gulf Coast 12
Gulf Coast 11
Gulf Coast 16