RE: st: Propensity Score Matching with Multiple Categorical Variables with Multiple Categories...Dummy Variables?

["Lachenbruch, Peter" <Peter.Lachenbruch@oregonstate.edu>]

I am also frustrated by anonymous posters.  Can we simple block such posts from appearing?  Marcello?

________________________________________
From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu [owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Steve Samuels [sjsamuels@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2012 6:28 AM
To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: st: Propensity Score Matching with Multiple Categorical Variables with Multiple Categories...Dummy Variables?

Please take note of the FAQ section:

        • "It is long-standing practice on Statalist that most members, especially the most active members who supply a large fraction of the answers, post using their real names. This is one of the ways in which we show respect to others. So we discourage you from posting from behind fake names or identifiers. Such handles are particularly objectionable if they include the word “Stata” in some way.. "

I would add that "real name" means first and last name.

Steve
sjsamuels@gmail.com


On Jul 14, 2012, at 1:51 AM, TA Stat wrote:

Thanks everyone for advice.  I am figuring out how to collapse some
categories of each variable in a meaningful way for my research
question.  I will keep my eyes on additional advice from everyone.

Pete

On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 10:12 PM, Austin Nichols
<austinnichols@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ariel and Pete--
> Estimating a logit with dummies is one way to combine across distinct
> combinations of the 15 observables to estimate a propensity score. A
> fully nonparametric propensity score would include every possible
> interaction as well, or simply compute the mean of treatment across
> all cells (possibly millions of cells).  If any cells have pscore 0 or
> 1, and some are almost certain to be degenerate in that way, then you
> must combine that cell with another; one way of doing that is using
> the marginal across some subset of categories. The logit with no
> interactions is one particular method of combining across cells.
>
> sysuse auto
> logit foreign i.rep78
> predict p if e(sample)
> egen m=mean(foreign), by(rep78)
> su m p if p<.
> * Note that if you do not restrict using if e(sample)
> * the estimated p=.818 for rep78=1
> * (taken from excl cat rep78=5) when it should be zero.
> ta rep78, mi sum(foreign)
> ta rep78, mi sum(m)
> ta rep78, mi sum(p)
>
> g fakecat=round(mpg,10)
> logit foreign i.rep78##i.fakecat
> predict p2 if e(sample)
> egen m2=mean(foreign), by(rep78 fakecat)
> su m2 p2 if p2<.
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 10:19 AM, Ariel Linden, DrPH
> <ariel.linden@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Pete,
>>
>> Since estimation of the propensity score is nothing more than a logistic (or
>> probit) regression model, you could leave the categorical variables as-is
>> and use the "i." prefix to denote that they are categorical, such as i.race.
>> The regression output will show you that the levels of the categorical
>> variable have been dealt with accordingly (including if any of the levels
>> are dropped from the model). See for example:
>>
>> sysuse auto
>> logit foreign i.rep78
>>
>> On the other hand, you could certainly create dummy variables for the
>> categorical variable. However, if you have a large number of covariates,
>> your dataset will start looking ugly in a hurry. In any case, your results
>> will be identical:
>>
>> tab rep78, gen(rep78_)
>> logit foreign rep78_1- rep78_5
>>
>> I hope this helps
>>
>> Ariel
>>
>> Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2012 10:06:14 +0700
>> From: TA Stat <tastat@gmail.com>
>> Subject: st: Propensity Score Matching with Multiple Categorical Variables
>> with Multiple Categories...Dummy Variables?
>>
>> Dear All
>>
>> In PS matching, I am wondering about how to handle multiple
>> categorical variables e.g. 15 variables.  Each variable has multiple
>> categories e.g. 3-5 categories.  Do I have to create dummy variables,
>> (n-1 for each variable), for all those categorical variables before
>> calculating propensity score?
>>
>> Thanks
>> Pete
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