Robust Linear Models

[1]:
%matplotlib inline
[2]:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import statsmodels.api as sm

Estimation

Load data:

[3]:
data = sm.datasets.stackloss.load()
data.exog = sm.add_constant(data.exog)

Huber’s T norm with the (default) median absolute deviation scaling

[4]:
huber_t = sm.RLM(data.endog, data.exog, M=sm.robust.norms.HuberT())
hub_results = huber_t.fit()
print(hub_results.params)
print(hub_results.bse)
print(
    hub_results.summary(
        yname="y", xname=["var_%d" % i for i in range(len(hub_results.params))]
    )
)
const       -41.026498
AIRFLOW       0.829384
WATERTEMP     0.926066
ACIDCONC     -0.127847
dtype: float64
const        9.791899
AIRFLOW      0.111005
WATERTEMP    0.302930
ACIDCONC     0.128650
dtype: float64
                    Robust linear Model Regression Results
==============================================================================
Dep. Variable:                      y   No. Observations:                   21
Model:                            RLM   Df Residuals:                       17
Method:                          IRLS   Df Model:                            3
Norm:                          HuberT
Scale Est.:                       mad
Cov Type:                          H1
Date:                Tue, 06 May 2025
Time:                        15:50:36
No. Iterations:                    19
==============================================================================
                 coef    std err          z      P>|z|      [0.025      0.975]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
var_0        -41.0265      9.792     -4.190      0.000     -60.218     -21.835
var_1          0.8294      0.111      7.472      0.000       0.612       1.047
var_2          0.9261      0.303      3.057      0.002       0.332       1.520
var_3         -0.1278      0.129     -0.994      0.320      -0.380       0.124
==============================================================================

If the model instance has been used for another fit with different fit parameters, then the fit options might not be the correct ones anymore .

Huber’s T norm with ‘H2’ covariance matrix

[5]:
hub_results2 = huber_t.fit(cov="H2")
print(hub_results2.params)
print(hub_results2.bse)
const       -41.026498
AIRFLOW       0.829384
WATERTEMP     0.926066
ACIDCONC     -0.127847
dtype: float64
const        9.089504
AIRFLOW      0.119460
WATERTEMP    0.322355
ACIDCONC     0.117963
dtype: float64

Andrew’s Wave norm with Huber’s Proposal 2 scaling and ‘H3’ covariance matrix

[6]:
andrew_mod = sm.RLM(data.endog, data.exog, M=sm.robust.norms.AndrewWave())
andrew_results = andrew_mod.fit(scale_est=sm.robust.scale.HuberScale(), cov="H3")
print("Parameters: ", andrew_results.params)
Parameters:  const       -40.881796
AIRFLOW       0.792761
WATERTEMP     1.048576
ACIDCONC     -0.133609
dtype: float64

See help(sm.RLM.fit) for more options and module sm.robust.scale for scale options

Comparing OLS and RLM

Artificial data with outliers:

[7]:
nsample = 50
x1 = np.linspace(0, 20, nsample)
X = np.column_stack((x1, (x1 - 5) ** 2))
X = sm.add_constant(X)
sig = 0.3  # smaller error variance makes OLS<->RLM contrast bigger
beta = [5, 0.5, -0.0]
y_true2 = np.dot(X, beta)
y2 = y_true2 + sig * 1.0 * np.random.normal(size=nsample)
y2[[39, 41, 43, 45, 48]] -= 5  # add some outliers (10% of nsample)

Example 1: quadratic function with linear truth

Note that the quadratic term in OLS regression will capture outlier effects.

[8]:
res = sm.OLS(y2, X).fit()
print(res.params)
print(res.bse)
print(res.predict())
[ 5.14425138  0.50502388 -0.01201917]
[0.45567935 0.07035074 0.00622495]
[ 4.84377221  5.09695987  5.34614281  5.59132103  5.83249453  6.06966331
  6.30282737  6.53198671  6.75714133  6.97829123  7.1954364   7.40857686
  7.6177126   7.82284362  8.02396992  8.22109149  8.41420835  8.60332049
  8.7884279   8.9695306   9.14662857  9.31972183  9.48881036  9.65389418
  9.81497327  9.97204765 10.1251173  10.27418224 10.41924245 10.56029794
 10.69734872 10.83039477 10.9594361  11.08447272 11.20550461 11.32253178
 11.43555423 11.54457196 11.64958497 11.75059327 11.84759684 11.94059569
 12.02958982 12.11457923 12.19556392 12.27254389 12.34551913 12.41448966
 12.47945547 12.54041656]

Estimate RLM:

[9]:
resrlm = sm.RLM(y2, X).fit()
print(resrlm.params)
print(resrlm.bse)
[ 4.99264382e+00  5.01716463e-01 -2.20926245e-03]
[0.15380329 0.02374515 0.00210108]

Draw a plot to compare OLS estimates to the robust estimates:

[10]:
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(12, 8))
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
ax.plot(x1, y2, "o", label="data")
ax.plot(x1, y_true2, "b-", label="True")
pred_ols = res.get_prediction()
iv_l = pred_ols.summary_frame()["obs_ci_lower"]
iv_u = pred_ols.summary_frame()["obs_ci_upper"]

ax.plot(x1, res.fittedvalues, "r-", label="OLS")
ax.plot(x1, iv_u, "r--")
ax.plot(x1, iv_l, "r--")
ax.plot(x1, resrlm.fittedvalues, "g.-", label="RLM")
ax.legend(loc="best")
[10]:
<matplotlib.legend.Legend at 0x7fe42d07d900>
../../../_images/examples_notebooks_generated_robust_models_0_18_1.png

Example 2: linear function with linear truth

Fit a new OLS model using only the linear term and the constant:

[11]:
X2 = X[:, [0, 1]]
res2 = sm.OLS(y2, X2).fit()
print(res2.params)
print(res2.bse)
[5.62869738 0.38483222]
[0.39104251 0.0336938 ]

Estimate RLM:

[12]:
resrlm2 = sm.RLM(y2, X2).fit()
print(resrlm2.params)
print(resrlm2.bse)
[5.12654107 0.47611742]
[0.14047647 0.01210402]

Draw a plot to compare OLS estimates to the robust estimates:

[13]:
pred_ols = res2.get_prediction()
iv_l = pred_ols.summary_frame()["obs_ci_lower"]
iv_u = pred_ols.summary_frame()["obs_ci_upper"]

fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(8, 6))
ax.plot(x1, y2, "o", label="data")
ax.plot(x1, y_true2, "b-", label="True")
ax.plot(x1, res2.fittedvalues, "r-", label="OLS")
ax.plot(x1, iv_u, "r--")
ax.plot(x1, iv_l, "r--")
ax.plot(x1, resrlm2.fittedvalues, "g.-", label="RLM")
legend = ax.legend(loc="best")
../../../_images/examples_notebooks_generated_robust_models_0_24_0.png