One of Stata’s incredibly useful abilities is to temporarily store calculations from commands.
Why is this so useful? (more…)
Stata
Using Stored Calculations in Stata to Center Predictors: an Example
July 9th, 2015 by Jeff Meyer
Argggh! How Do I Output Tables and Graphs From Stata?
October 24th, 2014 by Jeff Meyer
For my first assignment using Stata, I spent four or five hours trying to present my output in a “professional” form. The most creative method I heard about in class the next day was to copy the contents into Excel, create page breaks, and then copy into Word.
SPSS makes it so easy to copy tables and graphs into another document. Why can’t Stata be easy?
Anyone who has used Stata has gone through this and many of you still are. No worries, help is on the way! (more…)
Loops in Stata: Making coding easy
October 21st, 2014 by Jeff Meyer
We’ve already discussed using macros in Stata to simplify and shorten code.
Another great tool in your coding tool belt is loops. Loops allow you to run the same command for several variables at one time without having to write separate code for each variable.
This discussion could go on for pages and pages because there is much you can do with a loop. (more…)
Macros in Stata, Why and How to Use Them
October 17th, 2014 by Jeff Meyer
We finished the last article about Stata with the confusing coding of:
local continuous educat exper wage age
foreach var in `continuous'{
graph box `var’, saving(`var’,replace)
graph box `var’, saving(`var’,replace)
}
I admit it looks like a foreign language. Let me explain how simple it is to understand. (more…)
Using Stata Efficiently to Understand Your Data
October 3rd, 2014 by Jeff Meyer
Most statistical software packages use a spreadsheet format for viewing the data. This helps you get a feeling for what you will be working with, especially if the data set is small.
But what if your data set contains numerous variables and hundreds or thousands of observations? There is no way you can get warm and fuzzy by browsing through a large data set.
To help you get a good feel for your data you will need to use your software’s command or syntax editor to write a series of code for reviewing your data. Sounds complicated.
Why Use Stata?
September 15th, 2014 by Jeff Meyer
Like many people with graduate degrees, I have used a number of statistical software packages over the years.
Through work and school I have used Eviews, SAS, SPSS, R, and Stata.
Some were more difficult to use than others but if you used them often enough you would become proficient to take on the task at hand (though some packages required greater usage of George Carlin’s 7 dirty words).
There was always one caveat which determined which package I used.