Regression Modelling Analysis on Compositional Data

Abstract

In data analysis of social, economic and technical fields, compositional data is widely used in problems of proportions to the whole. This paper develops regression modelling methods of compositional data, discussing the relationships of one compositional data to one or more than one compositional data and the interrelationship of multiple compositional data. By combining centered logratio transformation proposed by Aitchison (The Statistical Analysis of Compositional Data, Chapman and Hall, 1986) with Partial Least Squares (PLS) related techniques, that is PLS regression, hierarchical PLS and PLS path modelling, respectively, particular difficulties in compositional data regression modelling such as sum to unit constraint, high multicollinearity of the transformed compositional data and hierarchical relationships of multiple compositional data, are all successfully resolved; moreover, the modelling results rightly satisfies the theoretical requirement of logcontrast. Accordingly, case studies of employment structure analysis of Beijing’s three industries also illustrate high goodness-of-fit and powerful explainability of the models.