Biased estimation in policy research: an illustrative example of ridge regression in a health system model

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Publication Type Journal Article
School or College College of Social & Behavioral Science
Department Family & Consumer Studies
Creator Smith, Ken R.
Other Author Miller, Michael K.
Title Biased estimation in policy research: an illustrative example of ridge regression in a health system model
Date 1980
Description The paper develops an argument for the necessity of examining individual coefficients in policy models. As a result of this need, it is posited that something other than OLS estimators should be used since they are inflated and have extremely large variances when multicollinearity is present. Further, it is argued that policy models are by definition theoretically nonorthogonal. Ridge regression as one of a class of biased estimators is offered as one possible approach to dealing with the nonorthogonality problem in policy research. The logic of the approach is articulated and an empirical model of a health system is estimated with ordinary least squares and ridge estimators. The models are compared and implications discussed.
Type Text
Publisher Rural Sociological Society(RSS)
First Page 483
Last Page 500
Subject Policy models; Health systems; Ridge regression
Subject LCSH Policy sciences; Regression analysis
Language eng
Bibliographic Citation Miller, M. K. & Smith, K. R. Biased estimation in policy research: an illustrative example of ridge regression in a health system model. Rural Sociology, 45,3,483-500.
Rights Management (c)Rural Sociological Society(RSS)
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 6,551,879 Bytes
Identifier ir-main,2956
ARK ark:/87278/s61v5znf
Setname ir_uspace
ID 707063
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s61v5znf
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