Hi,
I am analyzing the choice between service providers depending on the availibility of features and the prices thereof. So the choice between provider A, B and C is specified as dependent on the availability (1/0) variable and 5 price points for each feature. In the data file prices are blank when a feature is unavailable but I noticed that in Preview Design Matrix there are zeros when I specify the price effect as linear.
Now I cannot tell MBC that the effects of price values are dependent on the features availability (that I can only do for dependent variables). Does that mean that the zeros are used in the estimation? That is what the programm does when 5 equidistant price points are transformed into -0.5 to 0.5 with zero being one of the points used for estimating the linear parameter. But in my case 0 could be either a transformed or a missing value.
What can I do to still include the effect of the prices of the features rather than just the effect of wether they are there or not?
Thanks,
Alex