How Can I Perform Weighted Least Squares Regression In Python

Leo Migdal

-Dec 4, 2025, 10:23 AM

how can i perform weighted least squares regression in python

Weighted Least Squares (WLS) regression is a powerful extension of ordinary least squares regression, particularly useful when dealing with data that violates the assumption of constant variance. In this guide, we will learn brief overview of Weighted Least Squares regression and demonstrate how to implement it in Python using the statsmodels library. Least Squares Regression is a method used in statistics to find the best-fitting line or curve that summarizes the relationship between two or more variables. Imagine you're trying to draw a best-fitting line through a scatterplot of data points. This line summarizes the relationship between two variables. LSR, a fundamental statistical method, achieves exactly that.

It calculates the line that minimizes the total squared difference between the observed data points and the values predicted by the line. Weighted Least Squares (WLS) Regression is a type of statistical analysis used to fit a regression line to a set of data points. It's similar to the traditional Least Squares method, but it gives more importance (or "weight") to some data points over others. WLS regression assigns weights to each observation based on the variance of the error term, allowing for more accurate modeling of heteroscedastic data. Data points with lower variability or higher reliability get assigned higher weights. When fitting the regression line, WLS gives more importance to data points with higher weights, meaning they have a stronger influence on the final result.

This helps to better account for variations in the data and can lead to a more accurate regression model, especially when there are unequal levels of variability in the data. Formula: \hat{\beta} = (X^T W X)^{-1} X^T W y One of the key assumptions of linear regression is that the residuals are distributed with equal variance at each level of the predictor variable. This assumption is known as homoscedasticity. When this assumption is violated, we say that heteroscedasticity is present in the residuals. When this occurs, the results of the regression become unreliable.

One way to handle this issue is to instead use weighted least squares regression, which places weights on the observations such that those with small error variance are given more weight since they contain... This tutorial provides a step-by-step example of how to perform weight least squares regression in Python. First, let’s create the following pandas DataFrame that contains information about the number of hours studied and the final exam score for 16 students in some class: Linear regression is a powerful tool for understanding relationships between variables. Most often, we encounter Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression, which assumes that the variance of the errors is constant across all observations (homoscedasticity). However, what happens when this assumption is violated?

When the error variance changes, a condition known as heteroscedasticity, OLS estimates can become inefficient. This is where Weighted Least Squares (WLS) Regression in Python comes in handy. In this comprehensive guide, we”ll explore how to perform WLS regression in Python, understand its underlying principles, and see practical examples to ensure your models are as robust as possible. Weighted Least Squares (WLS) is a form of linear regression analysis that assigns different weights to each data point or observation. The core idea is to give more “importance” to observations that are more reliable or have smaller variances, and less importance to those with larger variances. Unlike OLS, which treats all observations equally, WLS aims to minimize the weighted sum of squared residuals.

This adjustment helps to produce more efficient and accurate parameter estimates when heteroscedasticity is present, leading to more reliable standard errors and hypothesis tests. In this tutorial, we will learn another optimization strategy used in Machine Learning’s Linear Regression Model. It is the modified version of the OLS Regression. We will resume the discussion from where we left off in OLS. So, I recommend reading my post on OLS for a better understanding. If you know about the OLS, you know that we calculate the squared errors and try to minimize them.

Now, consider a situation where all the parameters in the dataset don’t hold equal importance, or you would have felt that some parameters are more governing than others. In those cases, the variance of errors is not constant, and thus, the assumption on which OLS works gets violated. Here comes the WLS, our rescuer. The modified version of OLS tackles the problem of non-constant variance of errors. It gives different weights to different variables according to their importance. Since we consider the weights of different variables according to their importance, the term used to minimize in the OLS equation changes.

Instead of minimizing the squared errors, the weighted squared errors are minimized. This additional factor incorporated into the equation improves the fit as the data varies, resulting in a non-constant variance of errors. So, giving equal weights to all the independent variables will lead to biased and poor results. The weights are generally calculated by taking the inverse of the variance of errors. If you get large weight variations, normalize it to have values with smaller variations. This will help our model to enhance the fitting process.

<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-111055 size-large" src="https://www.codespeedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Weighted-Least-Squares-Regression-in-Python-1024x476.jpg" alt="Weighted Least Squares Regression in Python" width="1024" height="476" srcset="https://www.codespeedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Weighted-Least-Squares-Regression-in-Python-1024x476.jpg 1024w, https://www.codespeedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Weighted-Least-Squares-Regression-in-Python-300x139.jpg 300w, https://www.codespeedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Weighted-Least-Squares-Regression-in-Python-768x357.jpg 768w, https://www.codespeedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Weighted-Least-Squares-Regression-in-Python-1536x714.jpg 1536w, https://www.codespeedy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Weighted-Least-Squares-Regression-in-Python.jpg 1782w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> Let’s use the same Diabetes dataset that was used in the OLS. When performing linear regression, we often assume that the errors (residuals) are equally spread across all observations. This is known as homoscedasticity. However, in many real-world datasets, this assumption doesn’t hold true. When the variance of the errors is not constant, we encounter a phenomenon called heteroscedasticity.

Ignoring heteroscedasticity can lead to inefficient parameter estimates and incorrect standard errors, making your statistical inferences unreliable. This is where Weighted Least Squares (WLS) regression comes to the rescue. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore WLS and demonstrate how to implement it effectively using the powerful Statsmodels library in Python. Weighted Least Squares is a variation of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression. While OLS minimizes the sum of the squared residuals, WLS minimizes a weighted sum of squared residuals. Heteroscedasticity: This is the primary reason.

When errors have different variances, observations with larger variances contribute more “noise” to the model. WLS assigns smaller weights to observations with larger variances and larger weights to observations with smaller variances, effectively “down-weighting” the noisier data points. Varying Precision: Some observations might be inherently more precise or reliable than others. WLS allows you to incorporate this prior knowledge into your model by giving more precise observations higher weights. Communities for your favorite technologies. Explore all Collectives

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Data Science, data science python, Heteroscedasticity, homoscedasticity, machine learning, OLS Regression, python regression, Regression Analysis, Statistical Inference, statistical modeling, Weighted Least Squares A cornerstone assumption underpinning classical linear regression models, particularly the Ordinary Least Squares method, is that of homoscedasticity. This critical concept dictates that the variability of the residuals—the vertical distances between the observed data points and the predicted regression line—must be uniform across all values of the predictor variable. In simpler terms, the spread or variance of the errors should remain constant, irrespective of the magnitude of the independent variable being analyzed. When the condition of homoscedasticity is satisfied, the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) procedure yields the most desirable estimates: the Best Linear Unbiased Estimators (BLUE). This guarantees that the calculated regression coefficients are not only unbiased but also possess the smallest possible variance among all linear unbiased estimators.

Achieving this efficiency is paramount because it ensures that statistical inferences—such as the construction of confidence intervals and the execution of hypothesis testing—can be performed with maximum reliability and precision. Furthermore, the presence of homoscedasticity implies that every single observation in the dataset contributes equally to the final determination of the regression coefficients. This equal weighting prevents any specific range of data points from disproportionately influencing the model parameters due to unusually large or small error variance. This uniformity is crucial for producing robust and trustworthy regression analysis results, confirming the validity of the model’s structure. However, this ideal scenario is not always met in real-world applications. When the constant variance of the residuals assumption is violated, the model is said to exhibit heteroscedasticity.

This situation commonly manifests visually in residual plots as a non-uniform spread of errors, often taking on a recognizable fan or cone shape, where the error magnitude increases or decreases systematically with the predictor... Misspecification: true model is quadratic, estimate only linear Two groups for error variance, low and high variance groups In this example, w is the standard deviation of the error. WLS requires that the weights are proportional to the inverse of the error variance. Compare the WLS standard errors to heteroscedasticity corrected OLS standard errors:

Draw a plot to compare predicted values in WLS and OLS: Weighted least squares regression is a statistical method used to fit a linear model to a dataset by giving more weight to certain data points based on their importance or reliability. In Python, this can be performed by using the Statsmodels library, which provides a function called WLS that allows the user to specify the weights for each data point. The WLS function then calculates the coefficients for the linear model by minimizing the weighted sum of squared residuals. This method is useful when dealing with datasets containing outliers or unequal variances among the data points. By performing weighted least squares regression in Python, one can obtain a more accurate and robust model that takes into account the varying importance of the data points.

One of the key is that the are distributed with equal variance at each level of the predictor variable. This assumption is known as homoscedasticity. When this assumption is violated, we say that is present in the residuals. When this occurs, the results of the regression become unreliable. One way to handle this issue is to instead use weighted least squares regression, which places weights on the such that those with small error variance are given more weight since they contain more... This tutorial provides a step-by-step example of how to perform weight least squares regression in Python.

How Can I Perform Weighted Least Squares Regression In Python

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