hmftest: Hausman-McFadden Test
In mlogit: Multinomial Logit Models

Description Usage Arguments Details Value Author(s) References Examples

Test the IIA hypothesis (independence of irrelevant alternatives) for a multinomial logit model.

hmftest(x, ...)

## S3 method for class 'formula'
hmftest(x, alt.subset, ...)

## S3 method for class 'mlogit'
hmftest(x, z, ...)

`x`	an object of class `mlogit` or a formula,
`...`	further arguments passed to `mlogit` for the `formula` method.
`alt.subset`	a subset of alternatives,
`z`	an object of class `mlogit` or a subset of alternatives for the `mlogit` method. This should be the same model as `x` estimated on a subset of alternatives,

This is an implementation of the Hausman's consistency test for multinomial logit models. If the independance of irrelevant alternatives applies, the probability ratio of every two alternatives depends only on the characteristics of these alternatives. Consequentely, the results obtained on the estimation with all the alternatives or only on a subset of them are consistent, but more efficient in the first case. On the contrary, only the results obtained from the estimation on a relevant subset are consistent. To compute this test, one needs a model estimated with all the alternatives and one model estimated on a subset of alternatives. This can be done by providing two objects of class mlogit, one object of class mlogit and a character vector indicating the subset of alternatives, or a formula and a subset of alternatives.

an object of class "htest".

Yves Croissant

Hausman, J.A. and D. McFadden (1984), A Specification Test for the Multinomial Logit Model, Econometrica, 52, pp.1219–1240.

## from Greene's Econometric Analysis p. 731

data("TravelMode", package = "AER")
TravelMode <- mlogit.data(TravelMode, choice = "choice", shape = "long",
                          alt.var = "mode", chid.var = "individual",
                          drop.index = FALSE)

## Create a variable of income only for the air mode

TravelMode$avinc <- with(TravelMode, (mode == 'air') * income)

## Estimate the model on all alternatives, with car as the base level
## like in Greene's book.

x <- mlogit(choice ~ wait + gcost + avinc, TravelMode, reflevel = "car")

## Estimate the same model for ground modes only (the variable avinc
## must be dropped because it is 0 for every observation

g <- mlogit(choice ~ wait + gcost, TravelMode, reflevel = "car",
            alt.subset = c("car", "bus", "train"))

## Compute the test

hmftest(x,g)