Calculate the number of firms at a given month - stata

I'm working on a dataset in Stata
The first column is the name of the firm. the second column is the start date of this firm and the third column is the expiration date of this firm. If the expdate is missing, this firm is still in business. I want to create a variable that will record the number of firms at a given time. (preferably to be a monthly variable)
I'm really lost here. Please help!

Next time, try using dataex (ssc install dataex) rather than a screen shot, this is recommended in the Stata tag wiki, and will help others help you!
Here is an example for how to count the number of firms that are alive in each period (I'll use years, but point out where you can switch to month). This example borrows from Nick Cox's Stata journal article on this topic.
First, load the data:
* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input long(firmID dt_start dt_end)
3923155 20080123 99991231
2913168 20070630 99991231
3079566 20000601 20030212
3103920 20020805 20070422
3357723 20041201 20170407
4536020 20120201 20170407
2365954 20070630 20190630
4334271 20110721 20191130
4334338 20110721 20170829
4334431 20110721 20190429
end
Note that my in my example data my dates are not in Stata format, so I'll convert them here:
tostring dt_start, replace
generate startdate=date(dt_start, "YMD")
tostring dt_end, replace
generate enddate=date(dt_end, "YMD")
format startdate enddate
Next make a variable with the time interval you'd like to count within:
generate startyear = year(startdate)
generate endyear = year(enddate)
In my dataset I have missing end dates that begin with '9999' while you have them as '.' I'll set these to the current year, the assumption being that the dataset is current. You'll have to decide whether this is appropriate in your data.
replace endyear = year(date("$S_DATE","DMY")) if endyear == 9999
Next create an observation for the first and last years (or months) that the firm is alive:
expand 2
by firmID, sort: generate year = cond(_n == 1, startyear, endyear)
keep firmID year
duplicates drop // keeps one observation for firms that die in the period they were born
Now expand the dataset to have an observation for every period between the start and end date. For this I use tsfill.
xtset firmID year
tsfill
Now I have one observation per existing firm in each period. All that remains is to count the observations by year:
egen entities = count(firmID), by(year)
drop firmID
duplicates drop

Related

Finding string value associated with max value of record subset in long format

For non-longitudinal analysis using long-formatted data, when subjects have multiple visits or records, I will typically hunt down a record within each subject using bysort ID, and set a temporary variable to hold the integer or real value that I found, and then egen max() to find the max value for all records found, then set a final value in record _n==1 for that subject. This is so I can have the values I want from different visits percolate to a single record for each subject. Each single record per subject will then be used during analysis (but not longitudinal, maybe cross-sectional or regression, ANOVA, etc.)
Let's say I want the highest cholesterol (ldl) value for the 3rd year of a trial, where ldl is measured quarterly (every 3 months) for all subjects, which can be accomplished using the code below:
cap drop ldl3tmp
cap drop ldl3max
cap drop ldl3
bysort id (visitdate): gen ldl3tmp = ldl if trialyear==3
bysort id (visitdate): egen ldl3max = max(ldl3tmp)
bysort id (visitdate): gen ldl3 = ldl3max if _n==1
Suppose there are initials for the lab technician or phlebotomist that did the blood draw. How can I percolate a string value to record _n==1 that's associated with the greatest ldl value among the subset of records for the 3rd year of the trial? String values can't be sorted, so I am guessing the answer might be to eliminate records for which ldl is not the greatest value in year 3, then the string will be in that record?
In this case, how can I find out what _n is for the maximum value? If I know that, I could use
bysort id (visitdate): drop if _n!=6 //if _n==6 has the max value of ldl
Here is how to find the record number associated with the greatest ldl value within 4 quarterly ldl values in year 3 of a trial. The result is a variable called recmax, which will only be filled in for the specific record where the greatest value was found (among all records for each subject).
cap drop tmpldl3
cap drop maxldl3
cap drop recmax
cap drop visitdate
gen long visitdate = date(dateofvisit, "MDY") //You have to convert date ("MM/DD/YYYY") to a long integer format - based on #days since Jan 1, 1960
bysort id (visitdate): gen tmpldl3 = ldl if trialyear ==3
bysort id (visitdate): egen maxldl3 = max(tmpldl3)
bysort id (visitdate): gen recmax = _n if tmpldl3==maxldl3 & tmpldl3!=. & maxldl3!=.
You can then analyze all the other data (such as string data) in that record cross-sectionally (ANOVA, correlation, regression) by specifying if recmax!=. in the trailing if statement for any analysis command. If you are careful, you could also drop all other records with extraneous ldl values not of interest by using the command drop if recmax!=. providing you realize you dropped data and if you save, save to a filename with "_reduced" or "_dropped" in it.

Displaying variable sets that define each row

To say that a dataset is (person, year) level means that each row of that dataset has different (person, year) like this:
person year wage
Mike 2000 10
Mike 2010 30
Jack 1990 20
How can I make Stata display exactly those (person, year) variable sets that uniquely define each row?
I want to make a log file to record
person year
only, but not display any individual information (displaying individuals' information in a log file is against the rules set by the data provider).
How could I do this?
What I thought about is using bysort in some way
bysort person year: gen num=_n
and if every num is 1, then it means (person, year) defines each row.
But if a dataset is extremely large, then checking whether every num is 1 is too tedious. Is there any smarter way?
The command isid checks whether the variables you supply do jointly specify observations uniquely. Here is an example you can try:
. webuse grunfeld, clear
. isid company
variable company does not uniquely identify the observations
r(459);
. isid company year
Note the principle: no news is good news.
Another way to check for problems is through duplicates. For example, try duplicates list person year. In your case, you don't want that in the log. But what you can do first is anonymise your persons through
egen id = group(person)
and then check for duplicates on id year.
See also this FAQ.

How to calculate month between two dates in stata

I want to create a variable with the age of credit. The data only has the date of the start of credit.
I create date variable (eg 2017-12-31) for default. Then, i want calculate age with date of the start credit.
I tried to search for an article about that, but no luck.
Thanks.
It seems like your data is daily. In that case what you need is:
gen current_date=date("20171231","YMD")
format current_date %td //this will be the variable from which age will be calculated
gen age=current_date-start_credit_date //again, assuming the start credit variable is daily
this gives the age variable as the number of days. If you want it as the number of months, you need to add:
gen current_month=mofd(current_date)
format current_month %tm
gen start_month=mofd(start_credit_date)
format start_month %tm
gen age_month=current_month-start_month

How to destring a date in Stata containing just the year?

I have a string variable in Stata called YEAR with format "aaaa" (e.g. 2011). I want to replace "aaaa" with "31decaaaa" and destring the obtained variable.
My feeling is that the best way to proceed could be firstly destringing the variable YEAR and then adding "31dec". To destring the variable YEAR I have tried the command date but it does not seem to work. Any suggestion?
It would be best to describe your eventual goal here, as use of destring just appears to be what you have in mind as the next step.
If your goal is, given a string variable year, to produce a daily date variable for 31 December in each year, then destring is not necessary. Here are three ways to do it:
gen date = daily("31 Dec" + year, "DMY")
gen date = date("31 Dec" + year, "DMY")
gen date = mdy(12, 31, real(year))
Incidentally, there is no likely gain for Stata use in daily dates 365 or 366 days apart, as they just create a time series that is mostly implicit gaps.
If your data are yearly, but just associated with the end of each calendar year, keep them as yearly and use a display format to show "31 Dec", or the equivalent, in output.
. di %ty!3!1_!D!e!c_CCYY 2015
31 Dec 2015
Detail. date() is a function, not a command, in Stata. We can't comment on "does not seem to work" as no details are given of what you tried or what happened. daily() is just a synonym for date().

Stata: sales growth rate of multiple groups

Cross-posting:
german: http://www.stata-forum.de/post1716.html#p1716
english: http://www.talkstats.com/showthread.php/47299-sales-growth-rate-with-multiple-groups-conditions
I want to calculate the annual sales growth rate of different firm-groups in Stata. The firms are grouped by variables country and industry.
I summed sales for each group (called it sales_total: sales of all firms in a group with equal country, industry and year):
bysort country year industry: egen sales_total = sum(sales)
I have a much bigger sample, but I tried to calculate the growth-rate with a smaller sample.
I tried multiple combinations such as:
egen group = group(year country industry)
xtset group year, yearly
bys group: g salesgrowth = log(D.sales_total)
or
bysort group: gen salesgrowth=(sales[_n]-sales[_n-1])/sales[_n-1]*
also with tsset.
and tried everything from this answer:
Generate percent change between annual observations in Stata?
but I always get error messages such as
repeated time values within panel
or
repeated time values within sample
due to the repetition of the number in a variable such as group.
Can you help me to find the yearly growth rate from each group (firms from same country & industry)?
update
here again an example of my observations (which normally have 10,000 firms over 10 years). There are also missing values (for sales, industry, year, country)
firms -- country -- year -- industry -- sales
-a --------usa-------1----------1----------300
-a---------usa-------2----------1--------4000
-b---------ger-------1----------1--------200
-b---------ger-------2----------1--------400
-c---------usa------1----------1----------100
-c---------usa------2----------1----------300
-d---------usa------1----------1----------400
-d---------usa------2----------1----------200
-e---------usa------1----------1----------7000
-e---------usa------2----------1----------900
-f----------ger------1----------2----------100
-f---------ger------2----------2----------700
-h---------ger------1----------2----------700
-h---------ger------2----------2----------600
-.................etc.....................................
I tried the programing you mentioned, but I got a couple of variables that need to be used in the same row and not in the same column (which I would probably need). Is there a possibility to keep the data without reshaping, keeping them in a row, for example grouping the observations:
egen group=group(industry year country)
and then try
xtset group year
bysort group: sales_growth = log(D.sales)
or
bysort group: gen sales_growth = (sales[_n]-sales[_n-1])/sales[_n-1]
Thank you!
The strategy here is trying to work at the wrong level of resolution. You should
collapse (sum) sales, by(country year industry)
and then work with that reduced dataset. Depending on what you want precisely, you will probably need to restructure that data with reshape so that different industries give different variables. Then
xtset country year
and growth rates will then be easier to calculate.