How to Estimate Conditional Likelihood in a Multi-Level Model

Everything we've talked about for the last hour applies to your dependent variable. It does not apply to your independent variables because that's on the right hand side of that conditional statement. You can sometimes trick models where you move exogenous over to the endogenous side, but that's an MLM. Some SEM packages estimate joint likelihoods. I tell all my students is look at the top of your program and make damn sure you have as many variables and as many cases as you think that you have Because there are programs that will strip them out.