Path analysis and determining the distribution of indirect effects via simulation

Öznur İşçi Güneri, Atilla Göktaş and Uğur Kayalı

Journal of Applied Statistics, 2017, vol. 44, issue 7, 1181-1210

Abstract: The difference between a path analysis and the other multivariate analyses is that the path analysis has the ability to compute the indirect effects apart from the direct effects. The aim of this study is to investigate the distribution of indirect effects that is one of the components of path analysis via generated data. To realize this, a simulation study has been conducted with four different sample sizes, three different numbers of explanatory variables and with three different correlation matrices. A replication of 1000 has been applied for every single combination. According to the results obtained, it is found that irrespective of the sample size path coefficients tend to be stable. Moreover, path coefficients are not affected by correlation types either. Since the replication number is 1000, which is fairly large, the indirect effects from the path models have been treated as normal and their confidence intervals have been presented as well. It is also found that the path analysis should not be used with three explanatory variables. We think that this study would help scientists who are working in both natural and social sciences to determine sample size and different number of variables in the path analysis.

Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02664763.2016.1201793 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:japsta:v:44:y:2017:i:7:p:1181-1210

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CJAS20

DOI: 10.1080/02664763.2016.1201793

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Applied Statistics is currently edited by Robert Aykroyd

More articles in Journal of Applied Statistics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().