• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.999-1007
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• 2006

The semiparametric gamma frailty models have been often used for multivariate survival analysis because they give an explicit marginal likelihood. The commonly used estimation procedure is the profile likelihood method based on marginal likelihood, which provides the same parameter estimates as the EM algorithm. In this paper we show in finite samples the standard profile-likelihood method can lead to an underestimation of parameters, particularly for the frailty parameter. To overcome this problem, we propose an adjusted profile-likelihood method. For the illustration a numerical example and a small-sample simulation study are presented.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.199-207
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• 2012

Recently, variable selection methods using penalized likelihood with a shrink penalty function have been widely studied in various statistical models including generalized linear models and survival models. In particular, they select important variables and estimate coefficients of covariates simultaneously. In this paper, we develop a penalize h-likelihood method for variable selection in gamma frailty models. For this we use the smoothly clipped absolute deviation (SCAD) penalty function, which satisfies a good property in variable selection. The proposed method is illustrated using simulation study and a practical data set.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.63 no.4
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• pp.83-107
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• 2011

This study examines the duration dependence in the exit rate from National Basic Livelihood Protection Program(NBLP). If the length of time on welfare is negatively correlated with the exit rate after controlling for 'unobserved heterogeneity', the observed declining exit rates would provide evidence of true duration dependence. Data are drawn from Korean Welfare Panel study 2005~2008. A variety of discrete-time hazard models are estimated, including parametric/nonparametric hazard model, gamma frailty hazard model/mass point technique model. It is found that welfare dynamics in Korea does not show strong evidence of duration dependence after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. All the models estimated show that this finding is quite robust. The observed declining exit rate is largely due to differences in the unobservable characteristics of recipients. Thus, the detrimental effect of the welfare on the preference and attitude among recipients is not likely to be strengthened as time on welfare increases.