title: A generalized mover-stayer model for panel data.
abstract: A generalized mover-stayer model is described for conditionally Markov processes under panel observation. Marginally the model represents a mixture of nested continuous-time Markov processes in which sub-models are defined by constraining some transition intensities to zero between two or more states of a full model. A Fisher scoring algorithm is described which facilitates maximum likelihood estimation based only on the first derivatives of the transition probability matrices. The model is fit to data from a smoking prevention study and is shown to provide a significant improvement in fit over a time-homogeneous Markov model. Extensions are developed which facilitate examination of covariate effects on both the transition intensities and the mover-stayer probabilities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1. rjcook@vwaterloo.ca
authors.forename: Richard J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Cook
authors.forename: John D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Kalbfleisch
authors.forename: Grace Y
authors.initials: GY
authors.lastname: Yi