A Graphical Tool for Interpreting Regression Coefficients of Trinomial Logit Models

Multinomial logit (also termed multi-logit) models permit the analysis of the statistical relation between a categorical response variable and a set of explicative variables (called covariates or regressors). Although multinomial logit is widely used in both the social and economic sciences, the interpretation of regression coefficients may be tricky, as the effect of covariates on the probability distribution of the response variable is nonconstant and difficult to quantify. The ternary plots illustrated in this article aim at facilitating the interpretation of regression coefficients and permit the effect of covariates (either singularly or jointly considered) on the probability distribution of the dependent variable to be quantified. Ternary plots can be drawn both for ordered and for unordered categorical dependent variables, when the number of possible outcomes equals three (trinomial response variable); these plots allow not only to represent the covariate effects over the whole parameter space of the dependent variable but also to compare the covariate effects of any given individual profile. The method is illustrated and discussed through analysis of a dataset concerning the transition of master’s graduates of the University of Trento (Italy) from university to employment.     

Women's employment decisions in Malaysia: Does religion matter?

Religion may influence female employment decisions because different religions specify different life styles. This study investigates whether religion is a significant determinant of married and single women's paid-work and full-time employment in Malaysia. Using the Second Malaysian Family Life Survey and a sequential logit approach, this paper finds that religion is less influential in urban areas than in rural areas.     

Survival in the U.S. petroleum refining industry

Of the 324 petroleum refineries operating in the U.S. in 1982, only 149 were still in the hands of their original owners in 2007. Using duration analysis, this paper explores why refineries change ownership or shut down. Plants are more likely to ‘survive’ with their original owners if they are older or larger, but less likely if the owner is a major integrated firm, or the refinery is a more technologically complex one. This latter result differs from existing research on the issue. This paper also presents a split population model to relax the general assumption of the duration model that all refiners will eventually close down; the empirical results show that the split population model converges on a standard hazard model; the log-logistic version fits best. Finally, a multinomial logit model is estimated to analyze the factors that influence the refinery plant's choices of staying open, closing, or changing ownership. Plant size, age and technology usage have positive impacts on the likelihood that a refinery will stay open, or change ownership (rather than close down).     

产融结合退出及影响因素分析——基于参股非上市金融公司视角的实证研究

以2007—2014年发生的我国A股上市公司参股非上市金融公司事件作为研究样本，对企业退出产融结合的现象进行了探讨，实证结果表明：每股收益越低、资产负债率越高、协同费用率越高、产融结合年限越短，企业越有可能退出产融结合。研究能帮助企业在实施产融结合后更有针对性地关注自身运营状况和财务状况，也为其建立健全风险监督与防范机制提供了一定的政策支持。     

A monte carlo evaluation of response surface analysis based on paired-comparison data

The use of the logit transformation on paired-comparison data in the weighted least squares analysis of response surfaces for aesthetic qualities of products is discussed. Monte Carlo simulations are employed to investigate the small sample properties of the estimators and test statistics. A secondary objective of the Monte Carlo simulations is the comparison of two transformation procedures. The simulations are of standard-item paired-compar-ison experiments in which ties are not allowed.     

Bounding Optimal Expected Revenues for Assortment Optimization under Mixtures of Multinomial Logits

We consider assortment problems under a mixture of multinomial logit models. There is a fixed revenue associated with each product. There are multiple customer types. Customers of different types choose according to different multinomial logit models whose parameters depend on the type of the customer. The goal is to find a set of products to offer so as to maximize the expected revenue obtained over all customer types. This assortment problem under the multinomial logit model with multiple customer types is NP‐complete. Although there are heuristics to find good assortments, it is difficult to verify the optimality gap of the heuristics. In this study, motivated by the difficulty of finding optimal solutions and verifying the optimality gap of heuristics, we develop an approach to construct an upper bound on the optimal expected revenue. Our approach can quickly provide upper bounds and these upper bounds can be quite tight. In our computational experiments, over a large set of randomly generated problem instances, the upper bounds provided by our approach deviate from the optimal expected revenues by 0.15% on average and by less than one percent in the worst case. By using our upper bounds, we are able to verify the optimality gaps of a greedy heuristic accurately, even when optimal solutions are not available.     

中国农村贫困人口多维特征分析

利用中国综合社会调查（CGSS）数据,从个体的基本特征、家庭特征、社会特征和其他特征4个维度,采用二值Logit模型,考察这些特征变量对于农村人口陷入贫困可能性的影响;并进一步通过分位数回归模型比较分析这些特征变量对农村贫困人口和非贫困人口不同收入水平的影响。研究发现,在中国农村,具有以下几个典型特征的人群陷入贫困的可能性较大：老年人、受教育程度较低（自身、配偶或父母）、身体健康状况较差、少数民族、未婚状态、家庭抚养负担过重、无宗教信仰、没有非农工作、周工作时间较短、使用电视或互联网频率较低（这里理解为获取与农业生产和非农就业相关信息）。此外,比较分析结果表明,对于贫困人口和非贫困人口,不同维度下特征变量对收入水平影响的大小和方向存在较大差异。     

城市景观河流生态修复的产出研究及有效性可靠性检验——基于上海城市内河水质改善价值评估的实证分析

意愿价值评估法(CVM)为具有显著外部性的生态环境服务的价值评估提供可能,但只有经过有效性和可靠性检验的CVM成果才能应用于环境公共政策与治理。本文以CVM评价上海市城市景观内河——漕河泾港的生态恢复的产出,在国内经常采用的线形对数模型基础上,加入二值响应的Logit概率模型对受访者社会经济变量进行回归分析,验证本次CVM应用的理论有效性。回归中首次引入反映我国特殊社会结构的户籍变量、收入差距变量两者的交互项,并纳入间接反映环境问题历史成因的居民沿河居住期变量,以验证调查结果与一般经济理论的相容性和与我国特殊社会构成、经济态势以及环境历史成因的吻合性。以预调查和正式调查为试验—复试样本验证了研究结果的可靠性。结果表明:平均支付意愿是160元/(a.户),改善漕河泾水环境的年经济效益至少在6.1×106元。     

规模养殖户对疫病防控公共服务的满意度研究

利用霍邱、肥东、长丰三县调研数据,构建logit模型分析养殖户对疫病防控公共服务的满意度及其影响因素.研究结果表明,规模养殖户满意度受到养殖年数、预防免疫认知度、畜牧主管部门培训、畜牧兽医行政管理部门免疫消毒是否及时四个因素的高度影响,养殖时间越长、对预防免疫认知度越高、培训越规范、免疫消毒越及时,养殖户的满意表现越高;其次政府主导的防疫体系,其目标导向与养殖户自身的目标并不完全一致,是政府投入逐渐增加、防疫效果未能改善的主要原因.     

A VARYING-COEFFICIENT APPROACH TO ESTIMATION AND EXTRAPOLATION OF HOUSEHOLD SIZE

Household formation analysis is both a multidimensional economical and statistical problem of great complexity. Since most of the literature tries to incorporate multiple economic aspects, there is, considering the extraordinary practical relevance of the problem, a remarkable gap between theory and application in this field. This paper tries to diminish this gap by a comprehensive treatise on the statistical site of the problem. Thus, we develop a model of household composition, where the evolution of the household membership rates is captured by a logit link-function and a multinomial distribution, which automatically fulfills the non-negativity and adding-up restrictions of the underlying probabilities. We use a varying-coefficients procedure by polynomially smoothing the household membership rates over age for every household size class and assuming a linear predictor in other variables. As an application we estimated and extrapolated the distribution of household sizes of an autonomous region using population register data. Our sample consisted of approximately 450,000 people living in about 170,000 households, grouped into nine different household size classes and classified into age classes from 0 to 90. The data covers a time span of 12 years, from 1986 to 1997. Empirical results show the robustness of the procedure even in case of low cell frequencies. Thus, there is no need for regional or age-group aggregations.