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Module 15 - MODEL BUILDING & SPECIFICATION

1.  THE MODEL BUILDING/SPECIFICATION PROBLEM IN RESEARCH CONTEXT

The problem of choosing the variables to include in the regression model is not as open-ended as it seems.  Depending on the design of the research, the variables to include may be predetermined, or there may be strong guidelines for choosing variables.  One can distinguish 4 types of research designs.

1.  Controlled Experiments

EX: an agricultural experiment to assess the effect on yield of a variety of corn of three levels of fertilizer and three levels of watering.
In a controlled experiment the "treatments" are randomly allocated to the experimental units.  No other variables are collected about the units.  The regression model consists of the dependent variable (yield) regressed on the predetermined independent variables, or factors (amount of fertilizer and of watering).

2.  Controlled Experiments with Supplemental Variables

In some experiments, characteristics of the experimental units are measured.  For instance, for human subjects, their age, sex, weight, educational attainment.  As these characteristics (because of randomization) are not supposed to be related to the values of the independent variables (the factors), their role is only to help reduce the error variance of the regression model.  They are usually few so they can be all included in the model and later discarded if they do not help in reducing error variance.

3.  Confirmatory Observational Studies

These are studies that use observational data to test hypotheses derived from "theory", which means previous studies in the field and new ideas and interpretations by the researcher.  Thus, the variables to collect and to include in the model belong to 2 categories EX: in the article by Scott South (1985) on factors explaining the divorce rate in the US, the author included 2 measures of economic well-being (the unemployment rate and the rate of growth of the GNP per capita) because he detected a consensus in the literature on divorce that the divorce rate is lower during hard economic times because individuals are more dependent on their spouses.
Thus, in confirmatory observational studies, previous studies and the new theories the researcher wants to test guide the choice of variables to include in the model, although there may be some choices to be made among alternative indicators of the same theoretical concept (e.g., unemployment versus GNP growth as an indicator of economic conditions).

4.  Exploratory Observational Studies

These are studies using observational data in which a strong basis of previous knowledge about the phenomenon of interest is lacking.  Or they may be studies in which there is some knowledge of the factors affecting the dependent variable but the goal is prediction rather than an understanding of the phenomenon.
EX: a study of the rates of child abuse among counties of North Carolina.  There are many characteristics of counties that can be obtained from government sources such as decennial censuses, but only vague ideas about which characteristics of counties are expected to be associated with the rate of child abuse.
EX: government agencies use regression models to estimate the value of your house in order to calculate the real estate tax that you pay.  When they develop these models they choose among all measurable characteristics of your house (heated area, size of land, initial purchase price, age, number of bedrooms, etc...) the subset that best predict the value of the house (as measured by the sale price in recent transactions).
To reduce the number of independent variables to be included in the model in exploratory observational studies, and to some extent in confirmatory observational studies, computer-based approaches have been developed that are based on 2 general strategies

2.  ALL-POSSIBLE-REGRESSIONS PROCEDURES

The all-possible-regressions procedure examines all possible subsets (of 1, 2, ..., P-1 variables) of the pool of P-1 potential X variables and identifies a few "good" subsets according to one of the following criteria:

1.  the Rp2 (or SSEp) Criterion

With the Rp2 criterion (where the p subscript refers to the number of variables in the model) subsets of the potential X variables for which the ordinary R-square is large are considered "good".  Choosing the model with largest R2 is equivalent to choosing the model with smallest SSE (since R2 = 1 - SSE/SSTO and SSTO is constant across all models).
The  Rp2 criterion is used to judge when to stop adding more variables rather than finding the "best" model, since Rp2 can never decrease when p increases.

2.  the Ra2 (or MSEp) Criterion

The  Ra2 criterion uses the adjusted R-square, which adjusts for the number of independent variables included, to compare models.  It can be shown (NKNW 8.4 p. 339) that  Ra2 = 1 - MSE/(SSTO/(n-1)), so that maximizing  Ra2 is equivalent to minimizing MSE.

3.  the Cp Criterion

The Cp  criterion is based on the concept of the total mean squared error of the n fited values for each subset regression model.  It can be shown that the total mean squared error for all n fitted values ^Yi is
Si=1 to n(E{^Yi} - mi)2 + Si=1 to ns2{^Yi}
which is seen as composed of a bias component and a variance component.
The criterion measure Gp is the mean squared error divided by the true error variance s2
Gp = (1/s2) [Si=1 to n(E{^Yi} - mi)2 + Si=1 to ns2{^Yi}]
Note that s2 is unknown.  Assuming that the model that includes all P-1 potential X variables is such that MSE(X1, ... , XP-1) is an unbiased estimator of s2, it can be shown that Gp can be estimated as
Cp = SSEp/MSE(X1, ... , XP-1) - (n-2p)
where SSEp is the SSE for the model with p-1 X variables and MSE(X1, ... , XP-1) is the MSE for the model with all P-1 X variables.  It can be shown that when there is no bias in the model with p-1 X variables then
E{Cp} ~= p
Thus when Cp values are plotted against p, unbiased models will fall near the line Cp = p.
The strategy with the Cp criterion is to identify models with

4.  the PRESSp Criterion

The PREdiction Sum of Squares criterion and the SSEp criteria are analogous, with a difference, as seen in their formulas
SSEp = S(Yi - ^Yi)2
PRESSp = S(Yi - ^Yi(i))2
where the sums are for i=1 to n.  The difference is that in PRESSp Yi is compared to its predicted value from a regression from which observation i was excluded, so that ^Yi(i) is the "deleted predictor" (by analogy with the "deleted residual" of regression diagnostics).  In fact, SSEp and PRESSp  can also be written
SSEp = Sei2
PRESSp = Sdi2
that is, PRESSp is the sum of the squared external residuals (or deleted residuals) di discussed in Module 10 on diagnostics for outliers and influential cases.
 

3.  FORWARD STEPWISE REGRESSION

The forward stepwise regression procedure will be illustrated in class by two examples The major weakness of forward stepwise regression (and other automatic ssearch procedures), compared to the all-possible-regressions methods, is that the end result is a single "best" model.  This model may not be as desirable as other models missed by the procedure.
 


Last modified 2 May 2000