How to categorize a predictor measured on the continuous scale?

Asked Sep 21 '15 at 12:47

Active Sep 21 '15 at 12:47

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How can I select the optimal number of categories that better represent a continuous predictor in the single-variable linear regression model?

I constructed this scatter plot:

plt.scatter(train['pred'], train['resp'])
plt.show()

But it does not give me a clear idea. Is there any "automated" way?

asked Sep 21 '15 at 12:47

Klausos

See also Best way to bin continuous data. But don't do it: see What is the benefit of breaking up a continuous predictor variable?. – Scortchi - Reinstate Monica Sep 21 '15 at 12:56
@Scortchi: Do you know the procedure in Python, not R? – Klausos Sep 21 '15 at 13:05
@Scortchi: To me, binning can improve accuracy of the model by reducing noise or helping model nonlinearity. That's why I'm asking. – Klausos Sep 21 '15 at 13:09
I do discuss those misconceptions in the post I linked to. I don't know of any Python implementations of optimal binning algorithms, but you'd be most likely to find one in the scikit-learn library. Or if there's one implemented in R that you like, call it with rpy2. – Scortchi - Reinstate Monica Sep 21 '15 at 13:17

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