Suppose You Are Interested in Explaining the Number of Surfers

Essay

Suppose you are interested in explaining the number of surfers surfing at your favorite spot on a given day.After collecting data on the number of surfers,the height of the waves (in feet),the water temperature,and whether the day was a weekend on a sample of 92 days,you estimate the following marginal effects for the Poisson model $$\begin{array} { lll l} \text { Surfers } _ { i } = & 13.653 + 6.029 \text { Height } _ { i } +& 0.596 \text { Temperature } _ { i } +& 4.076 \text { Weekend } _ { i } \\&( 3.824 ) ( 2.137 ) & ( 0.202 ) & ( 1.382 )\end{array}$$
a)Why is OLS not appropriate in this circumstance? How does a Poisson model improve on OLS?
b)Discuss the results.
c)What assumption is necessary for Poisson to be the appropriate model? How would you test this assumption? If this assumption fails,what alternative model could you estimate?