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, 02 Sep 2025
Time:                        08:44:57
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())

[ 5.07760241  0.51260945 -0.01209274]
[0.43593641 0.0673027  0.00595525]
[ 4.77528378  5.03185565  5.28439829  5.53291169  5.77739585  6.01785077
  6.25427646  6.48667292  6.71504014  6.93937812  7.15968686  7.37596637
  7.58821665  7.79643768  8.00062948  8.20079205  8.39692538  8.58902947
  8.77710433  8.96114995  9.14116633  9.31715348  9.48911139  9.65704007
  9.82093951  9.98080971 10.13665068 10.28846241 10.4362449  10.57999816
 10.71972219 10.85541697 10.98708252 11.11471884 11.23832592 11.35790376
 11.47345236 11.58497173 11.69246187 11.79592276 11.89535443 11.99075685
 12.08213004 12.16947399 12.25278871 12.33207419 12.40733044 12.47855744
 12.54575522 12.60892375]

Estimate RLM:

[9]:

resrlm = sm.RLM(y2, X).fit()
print(resrlm.params)
print(resrlm.bse)

[ 5.01255230e+00  4.96671036e-01 -1.85794719e-03]
[0.1384775  0.02137906 0.00189172]

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 0x7277d9788fd0>

../../../_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)

[5.56501406 0.391682  ]
[0.37555497 0.03235933]