Table 2.

The decision analysis and path analysis results of simulated data

$\begin{array}{l}{x}_j\\ \mathrm{t}\mathrm{o}\\ y\end{array}$	b ∗j	x j ↔ x k → y	r jk b ∗k	2b ∗j r jk b ∗k	${\displaystyle \sum _{k\ne j}{r}_{jk}{b}_k^{\ast }}$	r jy	${\displaystyle \sum _{j\ne k}{r}_{kj}{b}_j^{\ast }}$	R (j)
$\begin{array}{l}{x}_1\\ \mathrm{t}\mathrm{o}\\ y\end{array}$	0.383	x 1 ↔ x 2 → y	−0.162	−0.124	0.002	0.385	−0.700	0.148
		x 1 ↔ x 3 → y	2.504	1.916
		x 1 ↔ x 4 → y	−2.340	−1.795
$\begin{array}{l}{x}_2\\ \mathrm{t}\mathrm{o}\\ y\end{array}$	−1.097	x 2 ↔ x 1 → y	0.057	−0.124	0.243	−0.854	−0.416	0.670
		x 2 ↔ x 3 → y	−0.198	0.433
		x 2 ↔ x 4 → y	0.384	−0.842
$\begin{array}{l}{x}_3\\ \mathrm{t}\mathrm{o}\\ y\end{array}$	−2.593	x 3 ↔ x 1 → y	−0.369	1.196	2.009	−0.584	−0.278	−3.697
		x 3 ↔ x 2 → y	−0.084	0.434
		x 3 ↔ x 4 → y	2.462	−12.772
$\begin{array}{l}{x}_4\\ \mathrm{t}\mathrm{o}\\ y\end{array}$	2.471	x 4 ↔ x 1 → y	−0.362	−1.795	−3.117	−0.647	0.506	−9.300
		x 4 ↔ x 2 → y	−0.170	−0.843
		x 4 ↔ x 3 → y	−2.585	−12.799