Estimating heterogeneous choice models with oglm Richard Williams Department of Sociology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN
[email protected] Last revised October 17, 2010 – Forthcoming in The Stata Journal Abstract. When a binary or ordinal regression model incorrectly assumes that error variances are the same for all cases, the standard errors are wrong and (unlike OLS regression) the parameter estimates are biased. Heterogeneous choice (also known as location-scale or heteroskedastic ordered) models explicitly specify the determinants of heteroskedasticity in an attempt to correct for it. Such models are also useful when the variance itself is of substantive interest. This paper illustrates how the author’s Stata program oglm (Ordinal Generalized Linear Models) can be used to estimate heterogeneous choice and related models. It shows that two other models that have appeared in the literature (Allison’s model for group comparisons and Hauser and Andrew’s logistic response model with proportionality constraints) are special cases of a heterogeneous choice model and alternative parameterizations of it. The paper further argues that heterogeneous choice models may sometimes be an attractive alternative to other ordinal regression models, such as the generalized ordered logit model estimated by gologit2. Finally, the paper offers guidelines on how to interpret, test and modify heterogeneous choice models. Keywords. oglm, heterogeneous choice model, location-scale model, gologit2, ordinal regression, heteroskedasticity, generalized ordered logit model 1 Introduction When a binary or ordinal regression model incorrectly assumes that error variances are the same for all cases, the standard errors are wrong and (unlike OLS regression) the parameter estimates are biased (Yatchew & Griliches 1985).