Timeline for Standardizing single coefficient in multivariate analysis
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 8, 2014 at 17:40 | answer | added | Alejandro Ochoa | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jul 8, 2014 at 16:13 | comment | added | whuber♦ | It sounds like you might need to share more details about what you are doing, then. But please note that if $m$ is one of your independent variables then the standardization also changes the interpretation of the coefficients: there's a lot of discussion about that on this site. Perhaps that answers your question? | |
| Jul 8, 2014 at 14:36 | comment | added | Ali-Jena | "Multiplying a variable by a constant merely changes the units by which you measure it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that" exactly as I thought but significance levels are changing when I do that. which is very weird. | |
| Jul 8, 2014 at 14:34 | comment | added | whuber♦ | You need to understand "results" in terms of the estimated relationship between the independent and dependent variables. Standardizing will not change this. (In fact, almost all regression software will automatically standardize the variables in order to do its calculations.) Because you changed how you express the variables' values, of course the estimated coefficients will change! Multiplying a variable by a constant merely changes the units by which you measure it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. | |
| Jul 8, 2014 at 14:25 | comment | added | Ali-Jena | thank you for the quick response. $m$ is a share of imports to GDP so it is not a constant. Unfortunately, standardization IS changing my results alot. if I standardize $log(W)$ the very small number is $m$ will again make the variable very small and problem will persist. Problem with large coefficients is that the table looks very ugly. two coefficients around the value "1" and this one ranging from 4000 to 20000 in different models. Is multiplying a variable with a constant a serious crime? | |
| Jul 8, 2014 at 14:20 | comment | added | whuber♦ | Your results will not change at all by standardizing the variables. The fact that they do implies you are not actually standardizing them. I suspect--assuming that "$logX$" means $\log(X)$ and "$mlogW$" means $m\times\log(W)$--that you might have standardized $X$ and $W$. (It is unclear whether $m$ is a variable or a constant.) That drastically changes the entire model. The variables you might wish to standardize (although it will make no difference) are $\log(X)$ and $\log(W)$. What's the problem with large coefficients, anyway? Just use appropriate units of measurement to report them. | |
| Jul 8, 2014 at 14:15 | history | asked | Ali-Jena | CC BY-SA 3.0 |