Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Addressing The Zeros Problem: Regression Models For Outcomes With A Large Proportion Of Zeros, With An Application To Trial Outcomes, Theodore Eisenberg, Thomas Eisenberg, Martin T. Wells, Min Zhang

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In law‐related and other social science contexts, researchers need to account for data with an excess number of zeros. In addition, dollar damages in legal cases also often are skewed. This article reviews various strategies for dealing with this data type. Tobit models are often applied to deal with the excess number of zeros, but these are more appropriate in cases of true censoring (e.g., when all negative values are recorded as zeros) and less appropriate when zeros are in fact often observed as the amount awarded. Heckman selection models are another methodology that is applied in this setting, yet …