Journal article
The R-Squared: Some Straight Talk
Political analysis, Vol.2(1), pp.153-171
1990
DOI: 10.1093/pan/2.1.153
Abstract
In political science research these days, the R
2 is out of fashion. A chorus of our best methodologists sounds notes of caution, at varying degrees of pitch. Berry and Feldman (1985, 15) remark in their popular regression monograph: “A researcher should be careful to recognize the limitations of R
2 as a measure of goodness of fit.” In their more general statistics text, Hanushek and Jackson (1977, 59) claim that “one must be extremely cautious in interpreting the R
2 value for an estimation and particularly in comparing R
2 values for models that have been estimated with different data sets.” Perhaps the most pointed attack comes from Achen (1982, 61), who argues that the R
2 “measures nothing of serious importance.” His contention is that it should be abandoned, and the standard error of the regression (SEE) substituted as a goodness-of-fit measure. Developing these lines of inquiry further, King (1986) provides the latest set of criticisms. Accordingly, “In most practical political science situations, it makes little sense to use [the R
2]” (King 1986, 669). And, concerning the “proportion of variance explained” definition more particularly, “it is not clear how this interpretation adds meaning to political analyses.” (King 1986, 678).
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The R-Squared: Some Straight Talk
- Creators
- Michael S Lewis-BeckAndrew Skalaban
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Political analysis, Vol.2(1), pp.153-171
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press; New York, USA
- DOI
- 10.1093/pan/2.1.153
- ISSN
- 1047-1987
- eISSN
- 1476-4989
- Number of pages
- 19
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 1990
- Academic Unit
- Political Science
- Record Identifier
- 9984025655902771
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