Survival Analysis Using SAS®: A Practical Guide

An Alternative Approach to Multiple Event Types

The competing risks approach presumes that each event type has its own hazard model that governs both the occurrence and timing of events of that type. The appropriate imagery is one of independent causal mechanisms operating in parallel. Whichever type of event happens first, the individual is then no longer at risk of the other types.

This is clearly a defensible way of thinking about deaths due to natural causes, on the one hand, and forcible removal from power, on the other. It may not be so sensible, however, for the distinction between constitutional exits and nonconstitutional exits. We might imagine that a leader will stay in power as long as his popularity with key groups stays sufficiently ...