UM  > Faculty of Social Sciences
Residential Collegefalse
Status已發表Published
Generalized Inflated Discrete Models: A Strategy to Work with Multimodal Discrete Distributions
Cai, Tianji1; Xia, Yiwei1; Zhou, Yisu2
2021-07
Source PublicationSociological Methods & Research
ISSN0049-1241
Volume50Issue:1Pages:365-400
Contribution Rank3
Abstract

Analysts of discrete data often face the challenge of managing the tendency of inflation on certain values. When treated improperly, such phenomenon may lead to biased estimates and incorrect inferences. This study extends the existing literature on single-value inflated models and develops a general framework to handle variables with more than one inflated value. To assess the performance of the proposed maximum likelihood estimator, we conducted Monte Carlo experiments under several scenarios for different levels of inflated probabilities under multinomial, ordinal, Poisson, and zero-truncated Poisson outcomes with covariates. We found that ignoring the inflations leads to substantial bias and poor inference of the inflations—not only for the intercept(s) of the inflated categories but other coefficients as well. Specifically, higher values of inflated probabilities are associated with larger biases. By contrast, the generalized inflated discrete models (GIDMs) perform well with unbiased estimates and satisfactory coverages even when the number of parameters that need to be estimated is quite large. We showed that model fit criteria, such as Akaike information criterion, could be used in selecting the appropriate specifications of inflated models. Lastly, the GIDM was implemented using large-scale health survey data as a comparison to conventional modeling approaches such as various Poisson and Ordered Logit models. We showed that the GIDM fits the data better in general. The current work provides a practical approach to analyze multimodal data that exists in many fields, such as heaping in self-reported behavioral outcomes, inflated categories of indifference and neutral in attitude surveys, large amounts of zero, and low occurrences of delinquent behaviors.

KeywordMultiple Data Inflations Generalized Inflated Discrete Models Maximum Likelihood Estimator Probabilities Of Inflation Monte Carlo Experiments
DOI10.1177/0049124118782535
Indexed BySSCI
Language英語English
WOS IDWOS:000607126200012
Scopus ID2-s2.0-85049685142
Fulltext Access
Citation statistics
Document TypeJournal article
CollectionFaculty of Social Sciences
Faculty of Education
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
Corresponding AuthorCai, Tianji
Affiliation1.Department of Sociology, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau, China
2.Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau, China
First Author AffilicationUniversity of Macau
Corresponding Author AffilicationUniversity of Macau
Recommended Citation
GB/T 7714
Cai, Tianji,Xia, Yiwei,Zhou, Yisu. Generalized Inflated Discrete Models: A Strategy to Work with Multimodal Discrete Distributions[J]. Sociological Methods & Research, 2021, 50(1), 365-400.
APA Cai, Tianji., Xia, Yiwei., & Zhou, Yisu (2021). Generalized Inflated Discrete Models: A Strategy to Work with Multimodal Discrete Distributions. Sociological Methods & Research, 50(1), 365-400.
MLA Cai, Tianji,et al."Generalized Inflated Discrete Models: A Strategy to Work with Multimodal Discrete Distributions".Sociological Methods & Research 50.1(2021):365-400.
Files in This Item: Download All
File Name/Size Publications Version Access License
Cai_et_al_2018_SMR.p(774KB)期刊论文作者接受稿开放获取CC BY-NC-SAView Download
Related Services
Recommend this item
Bookmark
Usage statistics
Export to Endnote
Google Scholar
Similar articles in Google Scholar
[Cai, Tianji]'s Articles
[Xia, Yiwei]'s Articles
[Zhou, Yisu]'s Articles
Baidu academic
Similar articles in Baidu academic
[Cai, Tianji]'s Articles
[Xia, Yiwei]'s Articles
[Zhou, Yisu]'s Articles
Bing Scholar
Similar articles in Bing Scholar
[Cai, Tianji]'s Articles
[Xia, Yiwei]'s Articles
[Zhou, Yisu]'s Articles
Terms of Use
No data!
Social Bookmark/Share
File name: Cai_et_al_2018_SMR.pdf
Format: Adobe PDF
All comments (0)
No comment.
 

Items in the repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.