This is a one-sided alternative (so we cannot use =) because of the "greater than" belief. As always, we expect to reject the null hypothesis.

Explanation:

• Hilda believes the average return on equity is greater than 8% (0.08).
• In hypothesis testing, the null hypothesis (H₀) typically represents the status quo or no effect, while the alternative hypothesis (H₁) represents what we want to prove.
• Since Hilda wants to prove that the average is greater than 8%, the alternative hypothesis should be M > 0.08.
• The null hypothesis should be the complement of the alternative: M ≤ 0.08.
• This is a one-tailed test (right-tailed test) because we're only interested in whether the mean is greater than the specified value.