An Introduction to Logistic

Regression

JohnWhitehead
Department of Economics
East Carolina University
 Outline

 Introduction and
Description
 Some Potential Problems
and Solutions
 Writing Up the Results
 Introduction and
Description
 Why use logistic regression?
 Estimation by maximum likelihood
 Interpreting coefficients
 Hypothesis testing
 Evaluating the performance of the model
 Why use logistic
regression?
 There are many important research topics for
which the dependent variable is "limited."
 For example: voting, morbidity or mortality, and
participation data is not continuous or distributed
normally.
 Binary logistic regression is a type of regression
analysis where the dependent variable is a dummy
variable: coded 0 (did not vote) or 1(did vote)
 The Linear Probability
Model
In the OLS regression:
Y =  + X + e ; where Y = (0, 1)
 The error terms are heteroskedastic
 e is not normally distributed because Y
takes on only two values
 The predicted probabilities can be greater
than 1 or less than 0
 An Example: Hurricane
Evacuations
Q: EVAC

Did you evacuate your home to go someplace safer before

Hurricane Dennis (Floyd) hit?
 
1 YES
2 NO
3 DON'T KNOW
4 REFUSED
 The Data
EVAC PETS MOBLHOME TENURE EDUC
0 1 0 16 16
0 1 0 26 12
0 1 1 11 13
1 1 1 1 10
1 0 0 5 12
0 0 0 34 12
0 0 0 3 14
0 1 0 3 16
0 1 0 10 12
0 0 0 2 18
0 0 0 2 12
0 1 0 25 16
1 1 1 20 12
 OLS Results
Dependent Variable: EVAC
Variable B t-value
(Constant) 0.190 2.121
PETS -0.137 -5.296
MOBLHOME 0.337 8.963
TENURE -0.003 -2.973
EDUC 0.003 0.424
FLOYD 0.198 8.147
2
R 0.145
F-stat 36.010
 Problems:

Predicted Values outside the 0,1

range
Descriptive Statistics

Std.
N MinimumMaximum Mean Deviatio
Unstandardized
1070 -.08498 .76027 .2429907 .16325
Predicted Value
Valid N (listwise) 1070
 Heteroskedasticity
10

U
n
s
t
a 0
n
d
a
r
d
i
Park Test
z
e
d

R
-10
Dependent Variable: LNESQ
e
s
i
B t-stat
d
u
a
(Constant) -2.34 -15.99
l -20
0 20 40 60 LNTNSQ
80 -0.20
100 -6.19
TENURE
The Logistic Regression Model
The "logit" model solves these problems:

ln[p/(1-p)] =  + X + e

 p is the probability that the event Y occurs,

p(Y=1)
 p/(1-p) is the "odds ratio"
 ln[p/(1-p)] is the log odds ratio, or "logit"
More:
 The logistic distribution constrains the estimated
probabilities to lie between 0 and 1.
 The estimated probability is:

p = 1/[1 + exp(- -  X)]

 if you let  +  X =0, then p = .50

 as  +  X gets really big, p approaches 1
 as  +  X gets really small, p approaches 0
 Comparing LP and Logit
Models
LP Model
1
Logit Model

0
 Maximum Likelihood Estimation
(MLE)
 MLE is a statistical method for estimating the
coefficients of a model.
 The likelihood function (L) measures the
probability of observing the particular set of
dependent variable values (p1, p2, ..., pn) that occur
in the sample:
L = Prob (p1* p2* * * pn)
 The higher the L, the higher the probability of
observing the ps in the sample.
 MLE involves finding the coefficients (, ) that
makes the log of the likelihood function (LL < 0)
as large as possible
 Or, finds the coefficients that make -2 times the
log of the likelihood function (-2LL) as small as
possible
 The maximum likelihood estimates solve the
following condition:

{Y - p(Y=1)}Xi = 0

summed over all observations, i = 1,…,n

 Interpreting Coefficients
 Since:

ln[p/(1-p)] =  + X + e

The slope coefficient () is interpreted as the rate of change

in the "log odds" as X changes … not very useful.
 Since:

p = 1/[1 + exp(- -  X)]

The marginal effect of a change in X on the probability is:

p/X = f( X) 
 An interpretation of the logit
coefficient which is usually more
intuitive is the "odds ratio"
 Since:

[p/(1-p)] = exp( + X)

exp() is the effect of the independent

variable on the "odds ratio"
 From SPSS Output:
Variable B Exp(B) 1/Exp(B)

PETS -0.6593 0.5172 1.933

MOBLHOME 1.5583 4.7508
TENURE -0.0198 0.9804 1.020
EDUC 0.0501 1.0514
Constant -0.916

“Households with pets are 1.933 times more likely to

evacuate than those without pets.”
 Hypothesis Testing
 The Wald statistic for the  coefficient is:

Wald = [ /s.e.B]2
which is distributed chi-square with 1
degree of freedom.
 The "Partial R" (in SPSS output) is

R = {[(Wald-2)/(-2LL()]}1/2
 An Example:

Variable B S.E. Wald R Sig t-value

PETS -0.6593 0.2012 10.732 -0.1127 0.0011 -3.28

MOBLHOME 1.5583 0.2874 29.39 0.1996 0 5.42
TENURE -0.0198 0.008 6.1238 -0.0775 0.0133 -2.48
EDUC 0.0501 0.0468 1.1483 0.0000 0.2839 1.07
Constant -0.916 0.69 1.7624 1 0.1843 -1.33
Evaluating the Performance
of the Model
There are several statistics which can be
used for comparing alternative models or
evaluating the performance of a single
model:
 Model Chi-Square
 Percent Correct Predictions
 Pseudo-R2
 Model Chi-Square
 The model likelihood ratio (LR), statistic is

LR[i] = -2[LL() - LL(, ) ]

{Or, as you are reading SPSS printout:

LR[i] = [-2LL (of beginning model)] - [-2LL (of ending model)]}

 The LR statistic is distributed chi-square with i

degrees of freedom, where i is the number of
independent variables
 Use the “Model Chi-Square” statistic to determine
if the overall model is statistically significant.
 An Example:
Beginning Block Number 1. Method: Enter
-2 Log Likelihood 687.35714

Variable(s) Entered on Step Number

1.. PETS PETS
MOBLHOME MOBLHOME
TENURE TENURE
EDUC EDUC

Estimation terminated at iteration number 3 because

Log Likelihood decreased by less than .01 percent.

-2 Log Likelihood 641.842

Chi-Square df Sign.

Model 45.515 4 0.0000

Percent Correct Predictions
 The "Percent Correct Predictions" statistic
assumes that if the estimated p is greater than or
equal to .5 then the event is expected to occur and
not occur otherwise.
 By assigning these probabilities 0s and 1s and
comparing these to the actual 0s and 1s, the %
correct Yes, % correct No, and overall % correct
scores are calculated.
 An Example:
Observed Predicted % Correct
0 1
0 328 24 93.18%
1 139 44 24.04%
Overall 69.53%
 Pseudo-R2
 One psuedo-R2 statistic is the McFadden's-R2
statistic:

McFadden's-R2 = 1 - [LL(,)/LL()]
{= 1 - [-2LL(, )/-2LL()] (from SPSS printout)}

 where the R2 is a scalar measure which varies

between 0 and (somewhat close to) 1 much like
the R2 in a LP model.
 An Example:

Beginning -2 LL 687.36
Ending -2 LL 641.84
Ending/Beginning 0.9338
2
McF. R = 1 - E./B. 0.0662
 Some potential problems
and solutions
 Omitted Variable Bias
 Irrelevant Variable Bias
 Functional Form
 Multicollinearity
 Structural Breaks
 Omitted Variable Bias
 Omitted variable(s) can result in bias in the coefficient
estimates. To test for omitted variables you can conduct a
likelihood ratio test:

LR[q] = {[-2LL(constrained model, i=k-q)]

- [-2LL(unconstrained model, i=k)]}

where LR is distributed chi-square with q degrees of

freedom, with q = 1 or more omitted variables
 {This test is conducted automatically by SPSS if you
specify "blocks" of independent variables}
 An Example:
Variable B Wald Sig

PETS -0.699 10.968 0.001

MOBLHOME 1.570 29.412 0.000
TENURE -0.020 5.993 0.014
EDUC 0.049 1.079 0.299
CHILD 0.009 0.011 0.917
WHITE 0.186 0.422 0.516
FEMALE 0.018 0.008 0.928
Constant -1.049 2.073 0.150

Beginning -2 LL 687.36
Ending -2 LL 641.41
 Constructing the LR Test
Ending -2 LL Partial Model 641.84
Ending -2 LL Full Model 641.41
Block Chi-Square 0.43
DF 3
Critical Value 11.345
“Since the chi-squared value is less than the critical value the
set of coefficients is not statistically significant. The full model
is not an improvement over the partial model.”
 Irrelevant Variable Bias

 The inclusion of irrelevant variable(s) can

result in poor model fit.
 You can consult your Wald statistics or
conduct a likelihood ratio test.
 Functional Form
 Errors in functional form can result in biased
coefficient estimates and poor model fit.
 You should try different functional forms by
logging the independent variables, adding squared
terms, etc.
 Then consult the Wald statistics and model chi-
square statistics to determine which model
performs best.
 Multicollinearity
 The presence of multicollinearity will not lead to biased
coefficients.
 But the standard errors of the coefficients will be inflated.
 If a variable which you think should be statistically
significant is not, consult the correlation coefficients.
 If two variables are correlated at a rate greater than .6, .7, .
8, etc. then try dropping the least theoretically important of
the two.
 Structural Breaks
 You may have structural breaks in your data. Pooling the
data imposes the restriction that an independent variable
has the same effect on the dependent variable for different
groups of data when the opposite may be true.
 You can conduct a likelihood ratio test:

LR[i+1] = -2LL(pooled model)

[-2LL(sample 1) + -2LL(sample 2)]

where samples 1 and 2 are pooled, and i is the number of

dependent variables.
 An Example
 Is the evacuation behavior from Hurricanes
Dennis and Floyd statistically equivalent?

Floyd Dennis Pooled

Variable B B B
PETS -0.66 -1.20 -0.79
MOBLHOME 1.56 2.00 1.62
TENURE -0.02 -0.02 -0.02
EDUC 0.05 -0.04 0.02
Constant -0.92 -0.78 -0.97
Beginning -2 LL 687.36 440.87 1186.64
Ending -2 LL 641.84 382.84 1095.26
Model Chi-Square 45.52 58.02 91.37
 Constructing the LR Test

Floyd Dennis Pooled

Ending -2 LL 641.84 382.84 1095.26
Chi-Square 70.58 [Pooled - (Floyd + Dennis)]
DF 4
Critical Value 13.277 p = .01

Since the chi-squared value is greater than the critical value the
set of coefficients are statistically different. The pooled model is
inappropriate.
 What should you do?
 Try adding a dummy variable:

FLOYD = 1 if Floyd, 0 if Dennis

Variable B Wald Sig

PETS -0.85 27.20 0.000
MOBLHOME 1.75 65.67 0.000
TENURE -0.02 8.34 0.004
EDUC 0.02 0.27 0.606
FLOYD 1.26 59.08 0.000
Constant -1.68 8.71 0.003
 Writing Up Results
 Present descriptive statistics in a table
 Make it clear that the dependent variable is discrete (0,
1) and not continuous and that you will use logistic
regression.
 Logistic regression is a standard statistical procedure so
you don't (necessarily) need to write out the formula for
it. You also (usually) don't need to justify that you are
using Logit instead of the LP model or Probit (similar to
logit but based on the normal distribution [the tails are
less fat]).
 An Example:
"The dependent variable which measures the
willingness to evacuate is EVAC. EVAC is equal
to 1 if the respondent evacuated their home
during Hurricanes Floyd and Dennis and 0
otherwise. The logistic regression model is used to
estimate the factors which influence evacuation
behavior."
 Organize your regression results in a table:
 In the heading state that your dependent variable
(dependent variable = EVAC) and that these are "logistic
regression results.”
 Present coefficient estimates, t-statistics (or Wald,
whichever you prefer), and (at least the) model chi-square
statistic for overall model fit
 If you are comparing several model specifications you
should also present the % correct predictions and/or
Pseudo-R2 statistics to evaluate model performance
 If you are comparing models with hypotheses about
different blocks of coefficients or testing for structural
breaks in the data, you could present the ending log-
likelihood values.
 An Example:
Table 2. Logistic Regression Results
Dependent Variable = EVAC
Variable B B/S.E.

PETS -0.6593 -3.28

MOBLHOME 1.5583 5.42
TENURE -0.0198 -2.48
EDUC 0.0501 1.07
Constant -0.916 -1.33

Model Chi-Squared 45.515

When describing the statistics in the tables,
point out the highlights for the reader.
What are the statistically significant
variables?

"The results from Model 1 indicate that coastal

residents behave according to risk theory. The
coefficient on the MOBLHOME variable is
negative and statistically significant at the p < .
01 level (t-value = 5.42). Mobile home residents
are 4.75 times more likely to evacuate.”
Is the overall model statistically
significant?

“The overall model is significant at the .

01 level according to the Model chi-
square statistic. The model predicts
69.5% of the responses correctly. The
McFadden's R2 is .066."
 Which model is preferred?
"Model 2 includes three additional independent
variables. According to the likelihood ratio test
statistic, the partial model is superior to the full
model of overall model fit. The block chi-square
statistic is not statistically significant at the .01
level (critical value = 11.35 [df=3]). The
coefficient on the children, gender, and race
variables are not statistically significant at
standard levels."
 Also
 You usually don't need to discuss the magnitude
of the coefficients--just the sign (+ or -) and
statistical significance.
 If your audience is unfamiliar with the extensions
(beyond SPSS or SAS printouts) to logistic
regression, discuss the calculation of the statistics
in an appendix or footnote or provide a citation.
 Always state the degrees of freedom for your
likelihood-ratio (chi-square) test.
 References
 http://personal.ecu.edu/whiteheadj/data/logit/

 http://personal.ecu.edu/whiteheadj/data/logit/logitpap.htm

 E-mail: WhiteheadJ@mail.ecu.edu