Simulations, Regressions, and Significance

Stijn Masschelein

Simulations

Why simulate data?

• Visualising your theory
• Experimenting with and understanding statistical tests
• Experimenting with statistical approaches without peaking at your data

See also Chapter 15 in Huntington-Klein (2021)

• Visualising can help you sharpen your intuition for your theory and for which values are reasonable and which are not.
• You can simulate variables and causal structures that you cannot observe. See also this week’s homework
• You don’t want to just decide on which statistical test to use because it gives you the “right” answer. If you want to experiment with different statistical models, you can do that with simulated data.

Simulating distributions in R

N <- 1000
random <- tibble(
  normal = rnorm(N, mean = 2, sd = 5),
  uniform = runif(N, min = 1, max = 5),
  binomial = rbinom(N, size = 1, prob = .25),
  sample = sample(1:10, size = N, replace = T)
)
glimpse(random)

Rows: 1,000
Columns: 4
$ normal   <dbl> 4.3112109, -0.9767378, -4.7536139, 2.1754…
$ uniform  <dbl> 4.267328, 1.585033, 1.408040, 4.640547, 2…
$ binomial <int> 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0,…
$ sample   <int> 8, 3, 7, 6, 3, 8, 8, 3, 5, 7, 3, 9, 2, 3,…

p1 <- ggplot(random, aes(x = normal)) + geom_density() + ggtitle("normal density")
plot_grid(p1, ncol = 4)

p1 <- ggplot(random, aes(x = normal)) + geom_density() + ggtitle("normal density")
p2 <- ggplot(random, aes(x = uniform)) + geom_histogram(bins = 50) + ggtitle("uniform histogram")
plot_grid(p1, p2, ncol = 4)

p1 <- ggplot(random, aes(x = normal)) + geom_density() + ggtitle("normal density")
p2 <- ggplot(random, aes(x = uniform)) + geom_histogram(bins = 50) + ggtitle("uniform histogram")
p3 <- ggplot(random, aes(x = binomial, y = normal)) + geom_point() + ggtitle("binomal-normal")
plot_grid(p1, p2, p3, ncol = 4)

p1 <- ggplot(random, aes(x = normal)) + geom_density() + ggtitle("normal density")
p2 <- ggplot(random, aes(x = uniform)) + geom_histogram(bins = 50) + ggtitle("uniform histogram")
p3 <- ggplot(random, aes(x = binomial, y = normal)) + geom_point() + ggtitle("binomal-normal")
p4 <- ggplot(random, aes(x = as.factor(sample), y = uniform)) + geom_jitter(width = .2) +
    ggtitle("sample-uniform") + labs(x = "sample")
plot_grid(p1, p2, p3, p4, ncol = 4)

Better Code Formatting

p1 <- ggplot(random, aes(x = normal)) +
  geom_density() +
  ggtitle("normal density")
p2 <- ggplot(random, aes(x = uniform)) +
  geom_histogram(bins = 50) +
  ggtitle("uniform histogram")
p3 <- ggplot(random, aes(x = binomial, y = normal)) +
  geom_point() +
  ggtitle("binomal-normal")
p4 <- ggplot(random, aes(x = as.factor(sample), y = uniform)) +
  geom_jitter(width = .2) +
  ggtitle("sample-uniform") + labs(x = "sample")
plot_grid(p1, p2, p3, p4, ncol = 4)

CEO-firm matching

New theory

Summary

• Firms have different size and CEOs have different talent.
• More talented CEOs work for bigger firms.
• Firms pay just enough so that the CEO is not tempted to work for a smaller firm.

The model is the second one presented in Edmans and Gabaix (2016). A more rigorous proof is shown in Tervio (2008). A simplified explanation is in the supplementary reading on theory and simulations

Visualisation of matching theory

obs <- 500
size_rate <- 1; talent_rate <- 2/3;
C <- 1/60; w0 = 1;
n <- c(1:obs)
size <-  600 * n ^ (-size_rate)
talent <- - 1/talent_rate * n ^ (talent_rate)

wage <- rep(NA, obs)
wage[obs] <- w0
for (i in (obs - 1):1){
  wage[i] <- wage[i + 1] + C * size[i + 1] *
      (talent[i] - talent[i + 1])
}

matching_plot <- qplot(x = size, y = wage) +
    labs(x = "Company Market Value", y = "CEO compensation")
plot(matching_plot + ggtitle("Value - Compensation"))

plot(matching_plot +
     scale_x_continuous(trans = "log",
                        breaks = scales::log_breaks(n=5, base=10)) +
     scale_y_continuous(trans = "log",
                        breaks = scales::log_breaks(n=5, base=5)) +
     ggtitle("log(Value) - log(Compensation)")
     )

CEO compensation data

us_comp <- readRDS(here("data", "us-compensation-new.RDS")) %>%
  rename(total_comp = tdc1)
us_value <- readRDS(here("data", "us-value-new.RDS")) %>%
  rename(year = fyear, market_value = mkvalt)
summary(us_value$market_value)

   Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.    NA's 
      0     983    2825   15982    9007 3761715    3272 

Putting it all together with _join

us_comp_value <-
    select(us_comp, gvkey, year, total_comp) %>% 
    left_join(
        us_value,
        by = join_by(year, gvkey))

glimpse(us_comp_value)

Rows: 28,607
Columns: 4
$ gvkey        <chr> "001004", "001004", "001004", "001004…
$ year         <dbl> 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2…
$ total_comp   <dbl> 5786.400, 4182.832, 5247.779, 5234.64…
$ market_value <dbl> 485.2897, 790.0029, 961.3080, 1046.39…

More information on joins to merge two datasets on the tidyverse website. I prefer the left_join function as the default because it indicates that we have a main dataset (left) to which we want to add a second dataset (right). We will also spend more time with these functions in week 7.

First plot

• The Basics
• The scales
• Zoom in

plot_comp_value <- ggplot(
    us_comp_value,
    aes(y = total_comp, x = market_value)) +
    geom_point(alpha = .10) +
    ylab("compensation ($ 000)") +
    xlab("market value ($ million)")

print(plot_comp_value)

plot_log <- plot_comp_value +
    scale_x_continuous(
        trans = "log1p",
        breaks = c(1e2, 1e3, 1e4, 1e5, 1e6),
        labels = function(x)
            prettyNum(x/1000, digits = 2)) +
    scale_y_continuous(
        trans = "log1p",
        breaks = c(1e1, 1e2, 1e3, 1e4, 1e5),
        labels = function(x)
            prettyNum(x/1000, digits = 2)) +
    ylab("compensation ($ million)") +
    xlab("market value ($ billion)")

print(plot_log)

plot_zoom <- plot_log +
    coord_cartesian(
        xlim = c(1e1, NA), ylim = c(1e2, NA))

print(plot_zoom)

Linear regression in R

See Chapter 6 of the lecture notes

Notation

\[\begin{equation} y_i = a + b_1 x_{1i} + ... + b_n x_{ni} + \epsilon_i \end{equation}\]

\[\begin{equation} \vec{y} = a + b_1 \vec{x_1} + ... b_n \vec{x_n} + \vec{\epsilon} \end{equation}\]

\[\begin{equation} \vec{y} = a + \vec{b} X + \vec{\epsilon} \end{equation}\]

\[\begin{equation} \vec{y} = \mathcal{N}(a + \vec{b} X, \sigma) \end{equation}\]

See also Chapter 13 in Huntington-Klein (2021)

reg <- lm(y ~ x1 + x2, data = my_data_set)
summary(reg)

Finally, the regression

reg <- lm(log(total_comp + 1) ~ log(market_value + 1),
         data = us_comp_value)
# summary(reg)
print(summary(reg)$coefficients, digits = 2)

                      Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept)               5.25     0.0298     176        0
log(market_value + 1)     0.39     0.0036     107        0

The regression uses a trick with the log(... + 1) formulation which is probably not appropriate. We will see the poisson regression later for a more appropriate way of analysing the effect on a positive variable.

CEO Incentives and Size

See Chapter 7 of the lecture notes

Historical Discussion

Our estimates of the pay-performance relation (including pay, options, stockholdings, and dismissal) for chief executive officers indicate that CEO wealth changes $3.25 for every $1,000 change in shareholder wealth (Jensen and Murphy 1990).

[…] The statistic in isolation can present a misleading picture of pay to performance relationships because the denominator - the change in firm value - is so large (Hall and Liebman 1998).

This article addresses four major concerns about the pay of U.S. CEOs: (1) failure to pay for performance; […]. The authors’ main message is that most if not all of these concerns are exaggerated by the popular tendency to focus on the annual income of CEOs (consisting of salary, bonus, and stock and option grants) while ignoring their existing holdings of company equity (Core, Guay, and Thomas 2005).

This is actually a good example of why a literature review is valuable. It’s not enough to just say that the three papers find different effects. They do more than that. The newer papers gradually build up a better theory of what happens in practice and use better measures to reflect that theory.

Stock holding data

us_comp <- readRDS(here("data", "us-compensation-new.RDS")) %>%
    rename(total_comp = tdc1, shares = shrown_tot_pct) %>%
    select(gvkey, execid, year, shares, total_comp)
us_value <- readRDS(here("data", "us-value-new.RDS")) %>%
    rename(year = fyear, market_value = mkvalt)
us_comp_value <- left_join(
    us_comp, us_value, by = c("year", "gvkey")) %>%
    filter(!is.na(market_value) & !(is.na(shares))) %>%
    mutate(wealth = shares * market_value / 100)
glimpse(us_comp_value)

Rows: 25,284
Columns: 7
$ gvkey        <chr> "001004", "001004", "001004", "001004…
$ execid       <chr> "09249", "09249", "09249", "09249", "…
$ year         <dbl> 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2…
$ shares       <dbl> 2.977, 3.034, 3.530, 3.885, 4.543, 5.…
$ total_comp   <dbl> 5786.400, 4182.832, 5247.779, 5234.64…
$ market_value <dbl> 485.2897, 790.0029, 961.3080, 1046.39…
$ wealth       <dbl> 14.4470744, 23.9686880, 33.9341724, 4…

Shares to Market Value

plot_shares <- ggplot(
    data = us_comp_value,
    aes(x = market_value/1000, y = shares)) +
    geom_point(alpha = .10) +
    ylab("CEO Ownership") +
    xlab("Firm Market Value (in Billions)") +
    scale_x_continuous(
        trans = "log",
        labels = function(x)
            prettyNum(x, digits = 2),
        breaks =
            scales::log_breaks(n = 5,
                               base = 10)) +
    scale_y_continuous(
        trans = "log",
        labels =
            function(x)
                prettyNum(x, digits = 2),
        breaks =
            scales::log_breaks(n = 5,
                               base = 10))

print(plot_shares)

Pay to Performance Sensitivity

• Data
• Plot

us_sens <- us_comp_value %>%
    group_by(gvkey, execid) %>%
    arrange(year) %>%
    mutate(prev_market_value = lag(market_value),
            prev_wealth = lag(wealth)) %>%
    ungroup() %>%
    mutate(change_log_value = log(market_value) - log(prev_market_value),
           change_log_wealth = log(wealth) - log(prev_wealth)) %>%
    filter(!is.infinite(change_log_wealth)) %>%
    arrange(gvkey)

• The assumption for pay-for-performance and incentives is that we want to measure whether a CEO has taken the correct decisions. In a bigger firm, the impact of a CEOs decisions are larger. If you improve management of employees, then the effects will be bigger for a firm with more employees.
• The other assumption is that CEOs do not care about dollar increases in dollars but in increases in percentages. Partly

\[ \begin{align} \frac{\partial W}{W} \frac{V}{\partial V} \\ &= \frac{ln(W)}{ln(V)} \end{align} \]

plot_hypothesis <- ggplot(
    us_sens,
    aes(y = change_log_wealth / change_log_value,
        x = market_value/1000)) +
  geom_point(alpha = .1) +
  scale_x_continuous(
    trans = "log", 
    breaks = scales::log_breaks(n = 5, base = 10),
    labels = function(x) prettyNum(x, dig = 2)) +
  coord_cartesian(
    ylim = c(-10, 10)) +
  xlab("market value") +
  ylab("sensitivity")

print(plot_hypothesis)

p-values

Definition

Assuming the null hypothesis is true, how likely is it to get an estimate that is as extreme as the one we have in our data.

Randomisation or Permutation Test

• Randomisation
• Test

data_hypo <- us_sens %>%
    mutate(
      sensitivity = change_log_wealth / change_log_value) %>%
  select(sensitivity, market_value) %>%
  filter(complete.cases(.))

observed_cor <- cor(
  data_hypo$sensitivity, data_hypo$market_value)

random_cor <- cor(
  data_hypo$sensitivity, sample(data_hypo$market_value))

print(prettyNum(c(observed_cor, random_cor), dig = 3))

[1] "-0.00669" "-0.00176"

simulate_cor <- function(data){
    return(cor(data$sensitivity,
               sample(data$market_value)))}
rand_cor <- replicate(1e4,
                      simulate_cor(data_hypo))

hist_sim <- ggplot(
    mapping = aes(
        x = rand_cor,
        fill = abs(rand_cor) < abs(observed_cor))) +
    geom_histogram(bins = 1000) +
    xlab("Random Correlations") +
    scale_fill_manual(values = c(uwa_blue, uwa_gold)) +
    theme(legend.position = "none") +
    coord_cartesian(
        xlim = c(-0.1, 0.1))

plot(hist_sim)

Bootstrap

calc_corr <- function(d){
  n <- nrow(d)
  id_sample <- sample(1:n, size = n,
                      replace = TRUE)
  sample <- d[id_sample, ]
  corr <- cor(sample$sensitivity,
              sample$market_value)
  return(corr)
}
boot_corr <- replicate(
    2000, calc_corr(data_hypo))

plot_boot <- ggplot(
    mapping = aes(x = boot_corr)) +
  geom_histogram(bins = 100, colour = uwa_blue,
                 fill = uwa_blue) +
    geom_vline(aes(xintercept = 0),
               colour = uwa_gold) +
    xlab("Bootstrapped Correlation")

print(plot_boot)

Comparison

Permutation Test

• Calculate the observed statistic
• Randomly resample the data by breaking the relation you want to test (= Null Hypothesis)
• Calculate the statistic for each random sample
• Is the observed statistic more extreme than the randomly resampled statistic?

See also Chapter 4.2 in Cunningham (2021)

Bootstrap

• Randomly sample observed observations with replacement.
• Calculate the statistic you are interested in.
• Is the distribution of resampled statistics unlikely to be 0 (= Null Hypothesis)?

See also Chapter 15 in Huntington-Klein (2021)

Formula Based P-value

cor <- cor.test(data_hypo$sensitivity, data_hypo$market_value)
pvalue_cor <- cor$p.value
print(prettyNum(pvalue_cor, dig = 2))

[1] "0.34"

regr_sens <- lm(sensitivity ~ I(market_value/1e3), data = data_hypo)
coefficients(summary(regr_sens)) %>% print(dig = 2)

                     Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept)            1.2556       0.92    1.37     0.17
I(market_value/1000)  -0.0095       0.01   -0.95     0.34

Assignment 1: Plots and regressions

Models

Signaling Model

Peacock’s tail as a signal

Cheap Talk Model

Assumptions are important

Answers

N <- 1000
high_performance <- rbinom(.x, .y, .z)
donation <- ifelse(.x, 1, 0)
return <- ifelse(donation == 1, .y, .z)
observed_donation <- ifelse(rbinom(N, 1, .9) == 1, donation, 1 - donation)
observed_return <- ... 
sig <- tibble(return = ...,
              donation = ...) %>%
    mutate(donated = ...)
glimpse(sig)

sig_plot <- ggplot(..., aes(x = .x, y = .y)) +
    geom_jitter(width = .3)
plot(sig_plot)

sig_reg <- lm(..., data = sig)
summary(...)

# References

Core, John E., Wayne R. Guay, and Randall S. Thomas. 2005. “Is U.S. CEO Compensation Broken?” Journal of Applied Corporate Finance 17 (4): 97–104. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6622.2005.00063.x.

Cunningham, Scott. 2021. Causal Inference: The Mixtape. Causal Inference. Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300255881.

Edmans, Alex, and Xavier Gabaix. 2016. “Executive Compensation: A Modern Primer.” Journal of Economic Literature 54 (4): 1232–87.

Hall, Brian J., and Jeffrey B. Liebman. 1998. “Are CEOs Really Paid Like Bureaucrats?” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 113 (3): 653–91. https://doi.org/10.1162/003355398555702.

Huntington-Klein, Nick. 2021. The Effect: An Introduction to Research Design and Causality. First. Boca Raton: Chapman and Hall/CRC. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003226055.

Jensen, Michael C., and Kevin J. Murphy. 1990. “Performance Pay and Top-Management Incentives.” Journal of Political Economy 98 (2): 225–64. https://doi.org/10.1086/261677.

Tervio, Marko. 2008. “The Difference That CEOs Make: An Assignment Model Approach.” American Economic Review 98 (3): 642–68. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.98.3.642.