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Re: st: A cautionary tale re scaling
From
Maarten buis <[email protected]>
To
stata list <[email protected]>
Subject
Re: st: A cautionary tale re scaling
Date
Thu, 15 Apr 2010 09:11:24 -0700 (PDT)
-- Clive Nicholas wrote:
> Very interesting, but why not take the natural log of such variables
> and fit those? Or do they exhibit abnormal behaviour in such models?
Because by just rescaling you estimate basically the same model, you
just solve any problems that might be the result of precision troubles
caused by very very large or very very small numbers.
If you take the log of a variable you are estimating a different
model, i.e. you are adding extra curvature to the effect.
It depends on your problem which one you want, however if you can
solve a problem by a linear transformation, then that must
certainly be preferable over solving that problem using a non-linear
transformation.
-- Maarten
--------------------------
Maarten L. Buis
Institut fuer Soziologie
Universitaet Tuebingen
Wilhelmstrasse 36
72074 Tuebingen
Germany
http://www.maartenbuis.nl
--------------------------
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