Improving Polynomial Regression Using Principal Components Regression With the Example of the Numerical Inversion of Probability Generating Function

Abstract

We use polynomial regression instead of linear regression if there is a nonlinear relation between a dependent variable and independent variables in a regression analysis. The performance of polynomial regression, however, may deteriorate because of the correlation caused by the power terms of independent variables. We present a polynomial regression model for the numerical inversion of PGF and show that polynomial regression results in the deterioration of the estimation of the coefficients. We apply principal components regression to the polynomial regression model and show that principal components regression dramatically improves the performance of the parameter estimation.