Regression without intercept in R and Stata - r

Question

Recently, I stumbled upon the fact that Stata and R handle regressions without intercept differently. I'm not a statistician, so please be kind if my vocabulary is not ideal.
I tried to make the example somewhat reproducible. This is my example in R:
> set.seed(20210211)
> df <- data.frame(y = runif(50), x = runif(50))
> df$d <- df$x > 0.5
>
> (tmp <- tempfile("data", fileext = ".csv"))
[1] "C:\\Users\\s1504gl\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\1\\RtmpYtS6uk\\data1b2c1c4a96.csv"
> write.csv(df, tmp, row.names = FALSE)
>
> summary(lm(y ~ x + d, data = df))
Call:
lm(formula = y ~ x + d, data = df)
Residuals:
Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
-0.48651 -0.27449 0.03828 0.22119 0.53347
Coefficients:
Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) 0.4375 0.1038 4.214 0.000113 ***
x -0.1026 0.3168 -0.324 0.747521
dTRUE 0.1513 0.1787 0.847 0.401353
---
Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1
Residual standard error: 0.2997 on 47 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared: 0.03103, Adjusted R-squared: -0.0102
F-statistic: 0.7526 on 2 and 47 DF, p-value: 0.4767
> summary(lm(y ~ x + d + 0, data = df))
Call:
lm(formula = y ~ x + d + 0, data = df)
Residuals:
Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
-0.48651 -0.27449 0.03828 0.22119 0.53347
Coefficients:
Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
x -0.1026 0.3168 -0.324 0.747521
dFALSE 0.4375 0.1038 4.214 0.000113 ***
dTRUE 0.5888 0.2482 2.372 0.021813 *
---
Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1
Residual standard error: 0.2997 on 47 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared: 0.7196, Adjusted R-squared: 0.7017
F-statistic: 40.21 on 3 and 47 DF, p-value: 4.996e-13
And here is what I have in Stata (please note that I have copied the filename from R to Stata):
. import delimited "C:\Users\s1504gl\AppData\Local\Temp\1\RtmpYtS6uk\data1b2c1c4a96.csv"
(3 vars, 50 obs)
. encode d, generate(d_enc)
.
. regress y x i.d_enc
Source | SS df MS Number of obs = 50
-------------+---------------------------------- F(2, 47) = 0.75
Model | .135181652 2 .067590826 Prob > F = 0.4767
Residual | 4.22088995 47 .089806169 R-squared = 0.0310
-------------+---------------------------------- Adj R-squared = -0.0102
Total | 4.3560716 49 .08889942 Root MSE = .29968
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
y | Coef. Std. Err. t P>|t| [95% Conf. Interval]
-------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
x | -.1025954 .3168411 -0.32 0.748 -.7399975 .5348067
|
d_enc |
TRUE | .1512977 .1786527 0.85 0.401 -.2081052 .5107007
_cons | .4375371 .103837 4.21 0.000 .2286441 .6464301
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. regress y x i.d_enc, noconstant
Source | SS df MS Number of obs = 50
-------------+---------------------------------- F(2, 48) = 38.13
Model | 9.23913703 2 4.61956852 Prob > F = 0.0000
Residual | 5.81541777 48 .121154537 R-squared = 0.6137
-------------+---------------------------------- Adj R-squared = 0.5976
Total | 15.0545548 50 .301091096 Root MSE = .34807
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
y | Coef. Std. Err. t P>|t| [95% Conf. Interval]
-------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
x | .976214 .2167973 4.50 0.000 .5403139 1.412114
|
d_enc |
TRUE | -.2322011 .1785587 -1.30 0.200 -.5912174 .1268151
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As you can see, the results of the regression with intercept are identical. But if I omit the intercept (+ 0 in R, , noconstant in Stata), the results differ. In R, the intercept is now captured in dFALSE, which is reasonable from what I understand. I don't understand what Stata is doing here. Also the degrees of freedom differ.
My questions:
Can anyone explain to me how Stata is handling this?
How can I replicate Stata's behavior in R?

Answer 1

I believe bas pointed in the right direction, but I am still unsure why both results differ.
I am not attempting to answer the question, but provdide deeper understanding of what stata is doing (by digging into the source of R's lm() function. In the following lines I replicate what lm() does, but jumping over sanity checks and options such as weights, contrasts, etc...
(I cannot yet fully understand why in the second regression (with NO CONSTANT) the dFALSE coefficient captures the effect of the intercept in the default regression (with constant)
set.seed(20210211)
df <- data.frame(y = runif(50), x = runif(50))
df$d <- df$x > 0.5
lm() With Constant
form_default <- as.formula(y ~ x + d)
mod_frame_def <- model.frame(form_default, df)
mod_matrix_def <- model.matrix(object = attr(mod_frame_def, "terms"), mod_frame_def)
head(mod_matrix_def)
#> (Intercept) x dTRUE
#> 1 1 0.7861162 1
#> 2 1 0.2059603 0
#> 3 1 0.9793946 1
#> 4 1 0.8569093 1
#> 5 1 0.8124811 1
#> 6 1 0.7769280 1
stats:::lm.fit(
y = model.response(mod_frame_def),
x = mod_matrix_def
)$coefficients
#> (Intercept) x dTRUE
#> 0.4375371 -0.1025954 0.1512977
lm() No Constant
form_nocon <- as.formula(y ~ x + d + 0)
mod_frame_nocon <- model.frame(form_nocon, df)
mod_matrix_nocon <- model.matrix(object = attr(mod_frame_nocon, "terms"), mod_frame_nocon)
head(mod_matrix_nocon)
#> x dFALSE dTRUE
#> 1 0.7861162 0 1
#> 2 0.2059603 1 0
#> 3 0.9793946 0 1
#> 4 0.8569093 0 1
#> 5 0.8124811 0 1
#> 6 0.7769280 0 1
stats:::lm.fit(
y = model.response(mod_frame_nocon),
x = mod_matrix_nocon
)$coefficients
#> x dFALSE dTRUE
#> -0.1025954 0.4375371 0.5888348
lm() with as.numeric()
[as indicated in the comments by bas]
form_asnum <- as.formula(y ~ x + as.numeric(d) + 0)
mod_frame_asnum <- model.frame(form_asnum, df)
mod_matrix_asnum <- model.matrix(object = attr(mod_frame_asnum, "terms"), mod_frame_asnum)
head(mod_matrix_asnum)
#> x as.numeric(d)
#> 1 0.7861162 1
#> 2 0.2059603 0
#> 3 0.9793946 1
#> 4 0.8569093 1
#> 5 0.8124811 1
#> 6 0.7769280 1
stats:::lm.fit(
y = model.response(mod_frame_asnum),
x = mod_matrix_asnum
)$coefficients
#> x as.numeric(d)
#> 0.9762140 -0.2322012
Created on 2021-03-18 by the reprex package (v1.0.0)