

In this case, to get the separate intercepts for each outcome, you suppress the overall intercept and include both dummy vectors for measure.

A second variable encodes information about whether the response vector, y, belongs to mpg or disp. In this case, the data has been stacked so that two different variables are now in one long vector. This example is similar to the first in many ways. dat <- as.ame(scale(mtcars))Įxample 3: Multivariate Models and Hidden Intercepts. In the case below, it is probably a good idea to estimate the intercept anyway, if only to drop the additional degree of freedom (which you really should have lost anyway because the mean was estimated), but there are a handful of situations where by construction, means may be 0 (e.g., certain experiments where participants assign ratings, but are constrained to give out equal positives and negatives).

I think a classic example of this was old style structural equation models or factor, which operated just on the covariance matrices of data. In this case, the intercept is 0 by design. In some cases, one may be working with standardized data. # conditional expectations for both groupsĮxample 2: The case of standardized data.

# intercept model: vs coefficient becomes difference But in some cases, it may be useful to have each groups' expected value. The intercept codes the expected value for the "reference" group, or the omitted vector, and the remaining vectors test the difference between each group and the reference. The standard regression model is parametrized as intercept + k - 1 dummy vectors. For categorical variables, we typically create binary vectors encoding group membership. I will focus on a few examples where we may be interested in an atypical model parametrization.Įxample 1: The ANOVA-style Model. Answers so far have already discussed in detail the example where the true intercept is 0. Removing the intercept is a different model, but there are plenty of examples where it is legitimate. And, building the models highest $R^2$ is one of the last statistical properties I do really concern about, but it is nice to present to the people who are not so well familiar with econometrics (there are many dirty tricks to make determination close to 1 :)). Screen the data, test the model with RESET test or any other linear specification test, this may help to see if my guess is true. Having exponentially growing processes it may occasionally happen that $R^2$ for the model without the intercept is "much" higher. For example, you need to log transform first if the model is multiplicative. It may happen that linear model is not suitable here. Finally, as I do often explain to my students, by leaving the intercept term you insure that the residual term is zero-mean.įor your two models case we need more context. If not the other regression parameters will be biased even if intercept is statistically insignificant (strange but it is so, consult Brooks Introductory Econometrics for instance). The shortest answer: never, unless you are sure that your linear approximation of the data generating process (linear regression model) either by some theoretical or any other reasons is forced to go through the origin.
