Multinomial Logit

Multinomial logit is a discrete choice model for modeling the association between covariates and the likelihood of observing a particular categorical outcome. Coefficients are reported in log-odds. One set of coefficients is presented for each outcome category except one. The excluded category is a reference category; all coefficients represent log-odds of the given category being selected versus the reference category. These examples assume y_mult is a categorical variable taking at least 3 (mutually exclusive) values.

Stata

Stata uses mlogit for multinomial models. The rrr option presents results in relative risk ratios.

mlogit y_mult x z
mlogit y_mult x z, rrr

If you want to change the reference category, the simplest method is to add the base() argument. If you wanted the reference category to be the value 2 of y_mult, you could use this:

mlogit y_mult x z, base(2)

R

The most commonly used multinomial regression function in R is multinom in the nnet package. y_mult here should be a factor.

example_mlogit <- multinom(y_mult ~ x + z,
                           data = example_data)
summary(example_mlogit)
broom::tidy(example_mlogit, conf.int=TRUE)

summary() produces summary output with standard errors. You can also use broom::tidy() to get a data frame of coefficients, standard errors, and p-values–and confidence intervals when using conf.int=TRUE.

To get relative risk ratios, exponentiate the coefficients:

exp(coef(example_mlogit))

Note you can change the reference category of a factor using relevel(). If your variable is y_mult in example_data and you want the reference category to be 2 you could use this before rerunning the model:

example_data$y_mult <-  relevel(example_data$y_mult,
                                ref = "2")

Mutinomial Linear Hypotheses

Stata

Forthcoming

R

Specifying a linear hypothesis from a multinom() object is slightly more complicated than for other models. In the hypothesis argument, you must specify the variable as outcome_level:predictor_var. The example below is a test that the coefficient for the effect of x likelihood of seeing category 2 is the same as the coefficient for x on category 3.

car::linearHypothesis(example_mult, "2:x = 3:x")

In the next example, we test whether both those coefficients are equal to zero.

car::linearHypothesis(example_mult, 
                      c("2:x = 0", "3:x = 0")

Note the number in front is the outcome level (that is, the equation).

If you wanted to run a linear hypothesis testing whether two levels of a factor variable predictor (x_cat) had equal estimated coefficients, and your model has four outcomes (three equations), you would use this:

example_mult <- multinom(y_mult ~ x_cat)
# See here, x_cat is split into dummies by R
car::linearHypothesis(example_mult, 
                      c("2:x_cat1 = 2:x_cat2",
                        "3:x_cat1 = 3:x_cat2",
                        "4:x_cat1 = 4:x_cat2")

IIA tests

Stata

Stata has a postestimation routine for running IIA tests:

mlogtest, iia

R

R does not have a convenient function for running IIA tests on multinom() models–there’s plenty for mlogit() but it is substantially harder to use. IIA tests are generally considered unreliable tests, however, so this isn’t a real problem.

Plotting Multinomial Models

Stata

Forthcoming.

R

The easiest way to plot multinomial output is to use ggeffects. The code below plots the probability of observing each outcome in a range of x from -1 to 1 with z held at 0.

library(ggeffects)
library(dplyr)
example_mlogit %>% 
  ggpredict(terms = c("x [-1:1]"),
            condition = c(z = 0)) %>% 
  plot()