Title | A Flexible Regression Model for Count Data |
Publication Type | Working Paper |
Year of Publication | 2008 |
Authors | Sellers, K. F., and G. Shmueli |
Series Title | Working Paper RHS 06-060 |
Institution | Smith School of Business, University of Maryland |
Abstract | Poisson regression is a popular tool for modeling count data and is applied in a vast array of applications from the social to the physical sciences and beyond. Real data, however, are often over- or under-dispersed and, thus, not conducive to Poisson regression. We propose a regression model based on the Conway-Maxwell-Poisson (CMP) distribution to address this problem. The CMP regression generalizes the well-known Poisson and logistic regression models, and is suitable for fitting count data with a wide range of dispersion levels. With a GLM approach that takes advantage of exponential family properties, we discuss model estimation, inference, diagnostics, and interpretation, and present a test for determining the need for a CMP regression over a standard Poisson regression. We compare the CMP to several alternatives and illustrate its advantages and usefulness using four datasets with |
Notes | R code is available at http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/kfs7/research/ |
URL | http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1127359 |
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