Solved – Interpreting interaction between dumthe IV and continuous moderator with log DV

categorical datainteractionmultiple regression

I urgently need your help to read the results of my regression analysis for my master thesis, which I need to hand in next week.

My DV is the natural logarithm of R&D expenditures, IV is a dummy variable labelled Decline, where 1= Firm is in a decline and 0= Firm is not in decline. The moderator is managerial ownership measured in percentage (0-100% or 0-1.0), labelled MOWN.

My thesis has two goals:
1) Find the relationship between IV (Decline) and DV (R&D Expenditures, log)
2) Find the moderating effect of MOWN on the relationship between IV-DV

I regressed Decline, MOWN, and Decline X MOWN simultaneously and got following coefficients.

$log(RD) = 6.984 – 0.852Decline – 4.703Mown + 3.030MownDecline$

The coefficient for Decline is -0.852***, which means that firms invest 85% less in R&D expenditures when Decline=1 (correct?)

Coefficient for MOWN: -4.703*
Coefficient for MOWN x Decline: 3.030

Contant: 6.984***

How do I interpret the results of the interaction now? When a firm is in decline (Decline=1), firms will invest 303% more in R&D expenditures with a one-percentage point increase in MOWN?.

Secondly, can I treat the MOWN variable as additional IV as well? Saying that MOWN, the moderator, has also a direct impact in the DV? Saying that "a one-percentage point increase in MOWN decreases DV by 470%"

Thank you a lot for your help. I really appreciate it!

Best Answer

The predicted value of your dependent variable can be found for any combination of Mown and Decline. When you have an interaction, looking at predicted values (and graphing them) is often a good way to see what is going on. You can also then exponentiate the predicted values.

You have log(RD)=6.984−0.852Decline−4.703Mown+3.030MownDecline

so you could make a table:

predicted log RD            Decline     Mown
6.984                          0         0
6.984 - 0.852                  1         0
6.984 - 4.703                  0         1 
6.984 - 0.852 - 4.703 + 3.03   1         1

You could also make a graph with mown on the x axis, the predicted DV on the y axis, and one line for "decline = 0" and one for "decline = 1"