Management, markets and politics: Statistical screening for historical footprints in Arctic coal mining

Abstract

The paper looks at the economic performance of the main (coal mining) company operating in Svalbard based on time series data from 1922 to 2006 and uses statistical techniques to detect structural breaks in economic indicators decomposed into components that the company control or influence and components that are exogenous. The analysis suggests distinctive historical periods and illustrates that statistical time series analysis may be used as a screening device to discriminate between noise and real change.