Dear Statalist,

I am currently struggling with the interpretation of the interactionterm Investm#Stage in my analysis.

After running
Code:
xtnbreg Patents Revenue RandD Focus Assets c.investmentment##c.stage i.Industry i.Year, re irr
I got the following output:

Code:
Random-effects negative binomial regression     Number of obs     =        472
Group variable: id                              Number of groups  =         70

Random effects u_i ~ Beta                       Obs per group:
                                                              min =          2
                                                              avg =        6.7
                                                              max =          8

                                                Wald chi2(20)     =     513.89
Log likelihood  = -1990.4528                    Prob > chi2       =     0.0000

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Patents |        IRR   Std. Err.      z    P>|z|     [95% Conf. Interval]
-------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
           Revenue |   1.001979   .0010452     1.90   0.058     .9999329     1.00403
             RandD |   1.004393   .0015713     2.80   0.005     1.001318    1.007477
             Focus |   1.077438   .0728899     1.10   0.270     .9436427    1.230204
            Assets |   .9516789   .5482813    -0.09   0.931     .3076778     2.94364
           Investm |   1.020654   .0085935     2.43   0.015      1.00395    1.037637
             stage |   1.169925   .1056852     1.74   0.082     .9800871    1.396533
                   |
  c.Investm#c.stage|   .9740871   .0130466    -1.96   0.050     .9488489    .9999965
                   |
          Industry |
                2  |   .4541281   .2296434    -1.56   0.119     .1685555    1.223528
                3  |   .9333449   .4720072    -0.14   0.892     .3463986    2.514827
                4  |     .18199   .0918296    -3.38   0.001     .0676929    .4892736
                5  |   2.698813   2.121375     1.26   0.207     .5782216    12.59654
                6  |   .4562541   .2767226    -1.29   0.196     .1389775    1.497852
                7  |   .7626905   .6887046    -0.30   0.764     .1299328    4.476904
                   |
              Year |
             2011  |   .9554278   .0670738    -0.65   0.516     .8326089    1.096364
             2012  |   .9710882   .0667718    -0.43   0.670     .8486533    1.111187
             2013  |   .7419934   .0566072    -3.91   0.000     .6389417    .8616657
             2014  |   .6401209   .0495466    -5.76   0.000     .5500186    .7449836
             2015  |   .5455575   .0459118    -7.20   0.000     .4626014    .6433896
             2016  |   .3290881   .0308789   -11.84   0.000     .2738056    .3955323
             2017  |   .0985694   .0133412   -17.12   0.000      .075602    .1285141
                   |
             _cons |   10.42205    5.30899     4.60   0.000     3.840177    28.28492
-------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
             /ln_r |  -.2604066   .1540182                     -.5622767    .0414635
             /ln_s |   .7328332   .2041451                      .3327161     1.13295
-------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
                 r |   .7707381   .1187077                      .5699101    1.042335
                 s |   2.080968   .4248195                      1.394751    3.104803
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LR test vs. pooled: chibar2(01) = 848.68               Prob >= chibar2 = 0.000
The variable stage is value continous variable between 0 and 1 indicating the average investment stage.(The closer to 1, the later the investment stage and vice versa)

Currently, my interpretation looks as follows: My dependent variable, patents, decreases by ~2.6%, with a one unit increase in the average investmentstage.
Is that correct? In case not, does anyone have a suggestion?

Thank you very much.

Best
Ben