Pairwise Likelihood Inference for Nested Hidden Markov Chain Models for Multilevel Longitudinal Data

2016
In the context of multilevel longitudinal data, where sample units are collected in clusters, an important aspect that should be accounted for is the unobserved heterogeneity between sample units and between clusters. For this aim, we propose an approach based on nested hidden (latent) Markov chains, which are associated with every sample unit and with every cluster. The approach allows us to account for the previously mentioned forms of unobserved heterogeneity in a dynamic fashion; it also allows us to account for the correlation that may arise between the responses provided by the units belonging to the same cluster. Under the assumed model, computing the manifest distribution of these response variables is infeasible even with a few units per cluster. Therefore, we make inference on this model through a composite likelihood function based on all the possible pairs of subjects within each cluster. Properties of the composite likelihood estimator are assessed by simulation. The proposed approach is illustrated through an application to a dataset concerning a sample of Italian workers in which a binary response variable for the worker receiving an illness benefit was repeatedly observed. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION
页码:216-228|卷号:111|期号:513
ISSN:0162-1459
收录类型
SSCI
发表日期
2016
学科领域
循证社会科学-方法
国家
意大利
语种
英语
DOI
10.1080/01621459.2014.998935
其他关键词
BINARY DATA; PROBABILISTIC FUNCTIONS; STATISTICAL-ANALYSIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; ALGORITHM; IDENTIFICATION; HETEROGENEITY; PERFORMANCE; EXTENSION; SELECTION
EISSN
1537-274X
资助机构
Italian Government (FIRB - Futuro in Ricerca - project Mixture and latent variable models for causal inference and analysis of socio-economic data) [RBFR12SHVV]
资助信息
The authors thank Laboratorio Riccardo Revelli, of Collegio Carlo Alberto in Torino (IT), for providing us with the dataset analyzed in this article; in particular, the authors thank Dr. Claudia Villosio for her helpful support. Francesco Bartolucci acknowledges the financial support from the grant RBFR12SHVV of the Italian Government (FIRB - Futuro in Ricerca - project Mixture and latent variable models for causal inference and analysis of socio-economic data).
被引频次(WOS)
8
被引更新日期
2022-01
来源机构
University of Perugia University of Bologna
关键词
CL-BIC Composite likelihood EM algorithm Latent Markov model Random effects Unobserved heterogeneity