Condition Index — Belsley Collinearity Diagnostics

The Condition Index, introduced by Belsley, Kuh, and Welsch (1980), is a scalar measure derived from singular value decomposition of the scaled regressor matrix. It quantifies the degree of near-linear dependence among predictors in ordinary least squares regression, enabling analysts to detect collinearity that inflates coefficient variance and destabilises parameter estimates. Widely used in economics, social sciences, and biomedical research wherever OLS regression is applied.