Practical Predictive Analytics

Advantages of regression

One advantage to using linear regression is that it facilitates easy interpretation of the linear coefficients which are attributed to each variable. Specifically, the slope of each variable in a regression model (the β in front of each of the regression terms), will indicate the change in the prediction for each 1-unit change in the corresponding independent variable, with all other variables in the model held constant. There is a fair amount of flexibility in using linear models in that you can also model nominal (categorical) independent variables as well as continuous ones, and incorporate a fair degree of non-linear relationships by using variable transformations and interactions. The body of knowledge for linear ...