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Questions tagged [logarithm]

The logarithm of a number is the power to which the base must be raised to get the number.

243 votes
4 answers
374k views

When (and why) should you take the log of a distribution (of numbers)?

Say I have some historical data e.g., past stock prices, airline ticket price fluctuations, past financial data of the company... Now someone (or some formula) comes along and says "let's take/use ...
PhD's user avatar
  • 14.8k
226 votes
8 answers
540k views

In linear regression, when is it appropriate to use the log of an independent variable instead of the actual values?

Am I looking for a better behaved distribution for the independent variable in question, or to reduce the effect of outliers, or something else?
d_2's user avatar
  • 2,421
64 votes
3 answers
80k views

Interpretation of log transformed predictor and/or response

I'm wondering if it makes a difference in interpretation whether only the dependent, both the dependent and independent, or only the independent variables are log transformed. Consider the case of <...
upabove's user avatar
  • 3,147
15 votes
3 answers
4k views

Interpreting log-log regression with log(1+x) as independent variable

Is interpreting log-log regression with log(1+x) as independent variable the same as having log(x) as independent variable? 1% increase in x results in beta% change in y? What is x has both negative ...
user359025's user avatar
86 votes
6 answers
145k views

Why is it that natural log changes are percentage changes? What is about logs that makes this so?

Can somebody explain how the properties of logs make it so you can do log linear regressions where the coefficients are interpreted as percentage changes?
thewhitetie's user avatar
  • 1,067
24 votes
2 answers
75k views

How to transform negative values to logarithms?

I would like to know how to transform negative values to log(), since I have heteroskedastic data. I've read that log(x+1) ...
Darwin PC's user avatar
  • 541
10 votes
4 answers
22k views

How to interpret logarithmically transformed coefficients in linear regression?

My situation is: I have 1 continuous dependent and 1 continuous predictor variable that I've logarithmically transformed to normalise their residuals for simple linear regression. I would ...
JimBob's user avatar
  • 101
8 votes
2 answers
10k views

Reporting regression statistics after logarithmic transformation

I'm a bit troubled about how to report linear regression statistics after log transformation of the dependent variable. I suppose I should report the transformed coefficient, but would they be easily ...
Bakaburg's user avatar
  • 2,939
3 votes
2 answers
1k views

Natural log approximation

I've got an equation that contains $$x^p - 1$$ $x$ is any positive number (such as 2) and $p$ is a small positive number close to 0 (such as 0.001). For some reason (that I may have known in High ...
David F's user avatar
  • 142
28 votes
1 answer
49k views

Expected value and variance of log(a)

I have a random variable $X(a) = \log(a)$ where a is normal distributed $\mathcal N(\mu,\sigma^2)$. What can I say about $E(X)$ and $Var(X)$? An approximation would be helpful too.
rocksportrocker's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
31k views

Interpretation of marginal effects in Logit Model with log$\times$independent variable

I am totally confused by statistics and I would be glad if you could help me. I have a difficulties to interpret marginal effects in logit model, if my independent variable is log transformed. I ...
Alina Lobova's user avatar
32 votes
6 answers
20k views

In statistics, should I assume $\log$ to mean $\log_{10}$ or the natural logarithm $\ln$?

I'm studying statistics and often come across formulae containing the log and I'm always confused if I should interpret that as the standard meaning of ...
Giuseppe Romagnuolo's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
8k views

How to interpret log-log regression coefficients for other than 1 or 10 percent change?

I have read many threads here on how to interpret coefficients in a regression where the predictor and the dependent variable are log-transformed. Most give an answer for a one or ten percent change. ...
Peter's user avatar
  • 233
44 votes
4 answers
21k views

Why are log probabilities useful?

Probabilities of a random variable's observations are in the range $[0,1]$, whereas log probabilities transform them to the log scale. What then is the corresponding range of log probabilities, i.e. ...
develarist's user avatar
  • 4,025
34 votes
4 answers
77k views

Expected value of a natural logarithm

I know $E(aX+b) = aE(X)+b$ with $a,b $ constants, so given $E(X)$, it's easy to solve. I also know that you can't apply that when its a nonlinear function, like in this case $E(1/X) \neq 1/E(X)$, and ...
Matt's user avatar
  • 341

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