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First of all, I am relatively new in using R and haven't used lavaan (or growth models) before so please excuse my ignorance.

I am doing my thesis and analyzing the U.S. financial industry during the financial crisis of 2007. I therefore have individual banks and several variables for each bank across time (from 2007-2013), some are time-variant (such as ROA or capital adequacy) and some are time-invariant (such as size or age). Some variables are also time-variant but not multi-level since they apply to all firms (such as the average ROA of the U.S. financial industry).

Fist of all, can I use lavaan's growth curve model ("growth") in this instance? The example given on the tutorial is for either time-varying variables (c) that influence the outcome (DV) or time-invariant variables (x1 & x2) which influence the slope (s) and intercept (i). What about time varying variables that influence the slope and intercept? I couldn't find an example for this syntax.

Also, how do I specify the "groups" (i.e. different banks) in my analysis? It is actually possible to do a multi-level growth curve model in lavaan (or R for that matter)?

Last but not least, I could find how to import a multilevel dataset in R. My dataset is basically a 3-dimensional matrix (different variables for different firms across time) so how do I input that via SPSS (or notepad?)?

Any help is much appreciated, I am basically lost on how to implement this model and sincerely need some assistance...

Thank you all in advance for your time!

Harry

edit: Here is the sytanx that I have come with so far. DO you think it makes sense?

ETHthesismodel <- '
# intercept and slope with fixed coefficients
i =~ 1*t1 + 1*t2 + 1*t3 + 1*t4
s =~ 0*t1 + 1*t2 + 2*t3 + 3*t4

#regressions (independent variables that influence the slope & intercept)
i ~ high_constr_2007 + high_constr_2008 + ... + low_constr_2007 + low_constr_2008 + ... + ... diff_2013
s ~ high_constr_2007 + high_constr_2008 + ... + low_constr_2007 + low_constr_2008 + ... + ... diff_2013

# time-varying covariates (control variables)
t1 ~ size_2007 + cap_adeq_2007 + brand_2007 +... + acquisitions_2007
t2 ~ size_2008 + cap_adeq_2008 + brand_2008 + ... + acquisitions_2008
...
t7 ~ size_2013 + cap_adeq_2013 + brand_2013 + ... + acquisitions_2013
'
fit <- growth(ETHthesismodel, data = inputdata,
group = "bank")
summary(fit)
Harry
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    http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5963269/how-to-make-a-great-r-reproducible-example – rmuc8 Mar 24 '15 at 15:31
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    You should consider editing this to isolate the coding questions, i.e the ones for which you can make a small example test data-object constructed with R code. (Sincerity is not a criterion for what is on-topic on SO.) Then isolate the methodological ones for presentation on a forum where they are OT (and don't forget to explain why these are not discussions with your thesis advisor). – IRTFM Mar 24 '15 at 16:01

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