[R] Mimicking SPSS weighted least squares

John Fox jfox at mcmaster.ca
Wed Mar 12 13:14:57 CET 2008


Dear Peter,

Actually, I'm aware of these distinctions. In my experience, identical replicates are relatively rare, but do occur, e.g., when one inputs a contingency table from a secondary source. On the other hand, I can't count the times (including two days ago) that I've seen people do the following using SPSS: Rescale weights that are proportional to inverse probability of selection (often originally scaled to produce estimates of population totals) so that they sum to the sample size, and then use the standard errors, p-values, etc., produced by SPSS.

Regards,
 John

--------------------------------
John Fox, Professor
Department of Sociology
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M4
905-525-9140x23604
http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox


> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-
> project.org] On Behalf Of Peter Dalgaard
> Sent: March-11-08 11:27 AM
> To: John Fox
> Cc: r-help at r-project.org; 'Ben Domingue'
> Subject: Re: [R] Mimicking SPSS weighted least squares
> 
> John Fox wrote:
> > Dear JRG, Rolf, Ben, and Peter,
> >
> > "Frequency" weights, possibly even non-integer weights, are useful
> for
> > surveys where observations are sampled with unequal probabilities of
> > selection. The approach in SPSS gives correct point estimates in this
> > situation but incorrect standard errors. The survey package, for
> example,
> > provides a better solution.
> >
> > Regards,
> >  John
> >
> Actually, I count this as a 3rd variant of weighting. I believe that
> SPSS 's standard errors are actually OK for the case where one data
> line
> actually represents a number of identical replicates. To my mind, there
> are three (main) kinds of weighting:
> 
> (1) Variance weighting (weights proportional to inverse variances)
> (2) Case weights (weights identical to number of replicates)
> (3) Inverse probability weights (weights inversely proportional to
> sampling freq.)
> 
> All three give the same point estimates, beta=inv(X'WX)X'WY but the SEs
> and DF are different (W is the diagonal matrix of weights). I think the
> formulas are as follows (please correct if I goofed):
> 
> in (1) you get sigma^2=Y'(W-WX' inv(X'WX)X'W)Y/(n-rank(X)) ,
>                         VCOV= sigma^2 inv(X'WX),
> 
> in (3) it is sigma^2=Y'(I-WX inv(X'WX)X') (I- X inv(X'WX)X'W)Y/(n-
> rank(X)),
>                    VCOV=sigma^2 inv(X'WX) X'WWX inv(X'WX)
> 
> in both these cases, the DF are n-rank(X)  (glossing over complications
> that arise when the weights become zero) and the VCOV are stable to
> proportional scaling of W.
> 
> in (2) you get sigma^2=Y'(W-WX' inv(X'WX)X'W)Y/(tr(W)-rank(X)),
>                          VCOV= sigma^2 inv(X'WX),
> 
> This is deceptively similar to (1), but notice the denominator of
> sigma^2. In this case, multiplying the weights by, say, 2 will roughly
> halve the VCOV, which is fair enough since it means that you have twice
> as much data.
> > --------------------------------
> > John Fox, Professor
> > Department of Sociology
> > McMaster University
> > Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M4
> > 905-525-9140x23604
> > http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox
> >
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-
> >> project.org] On Behalf Of JRG
> >> Sent: March-10-08 10:27 PM
> >> To: Rolf Turner; r-help at r-project.org; Ben Domingue
> >> Cc: r-help at r-project.org
> >> Subject: Re: [R] Mimicking SPSS weighted least squares
> >>
> >> On 11 Mar 2008 at 14:09, Rolf Turner wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> It would appear that the SPSS procedure would then give exactly the
> >>>
> >> same
> >>
> >>> point estimates of the parameters, and change the inference
> structure
> >>>
> >> by
> >>
> >>> changing the ``denominator degrees of freedom'' from n-p to sum(w)
> -
> >>>
> >> p.
> >>
> >> Well, if that IS what SPSS does, then it sounds like what Stata
> calls
> >> frequency weights, the
> >> general idea being that each "observation" in fact represents some
> non-
> >> negative number (w) of
> >> actual observations that have identical values.  Not much more than
> a
> >> glorified version of a
> >> frequency distribution table.
> >>
> >> I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with frequency weights,
> given
> >> an appropriate situation.
> >>
> >> ---JRG
> >>
> >> John R. Gleason
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> This seems to me to make little sense ...  But then, it ***is***
> >>> SPSS. :-)
> >>>
> >>> 	cheers,
> >>>
> >>> 		Rolf
> >>>
> >>> On 11/03/2008, at 11:35 AM, Peter Dalgaard wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Rolf Turner wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> On 11/03/2008, at 4:04 AM, Ben Domingue wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> Howdy,
> >>>>>> In SPSS, there are 2 ways to weight a least squares regression:
> >>>>>> 1. You can do it from the regression menu.
> >>>>>> 2. You can set a global weight switch from the data menu.
> >>>>>> These two options have no, in my experience, been equivalent.
> >>>>>> Now, when I run lm in R with the weights= switch set
> accordingly,
> >>>>>>
> >> I
> >>
> >>>>>> get the same set of results you would see with option #1 in
> SPSS.
> >>>>>> Does anybody know how to duplicate option #2 from SPSS in R?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> I think it's up to you to find out what ``option #2 from SPSS''
> >>>>> actually
> >>>>> *does*.  If you know that, then you can (with a modicum of
> effort)
> >>>>> duplicate that option in R.  The help file for lm() tells you
> that
> >>>>> R uses the weights by minimizing sum(w*e^2) where w = weights and
> >>>>> e = ``errors'' or residuals.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>> I believe case weighting in SPSS effectively replicates the
> >>>> relevant row (not sure if anything sensible comes out if weights
> >>>> are non-integer).  So
> >>>>
> >>>> lm(...., data=mydata[rep(1:nrow(mydata),w),])
> >>>>
> >>>> or thereabouts should do it. Might not be too efficient though.
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>>   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5,
> Entr.B
> >>>>  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
> >>>> (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph:  (+45)
> >>>> 35327918
> >>>> ~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)              FAX: (+45)
> >>>> 35327907
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>
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> 
> --
>    O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Øster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
>   c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
>  (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph:  (+45)
> 35327918
> ~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)              FAX: (+45)
> 35327907
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
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> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-
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