to create highest & lowest quartiles of a variable in Stata - stata

This is the Stata code I used to divide a Winsorised & centred variable (num_exp, denoting number of experienced managers) based on 4 quartiles & thereafter to generate the highest & lowest quartile dummies thereof:
egen quartile_num_exp = xtile(WC_num_exp), n(4)
gen high_quartile_numexp = 1 if quartile_num_exp==4
(1433 missing values generated);
gen low_quartile_num_exp = 1 if quartile_num_intlexp==1
(1062 missing values generated);
Thanks everybody - here's the link
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64545449/No%20of%20expeienced%20managers.dta
I did try both Aspen Chen's & Roberto's suggestions - Chen's way of creating high quartile dummy gives the same results as I had earlier & Roberto's - both quartiles show 1 for the same rows - how's that possible?
I forgot to mention here that there are indeed many ties - the range of the original variable W_num_exp is from 0 to 7, the mean being 2.126618, i subtracted that from each observation of W_num_exp to get the WC_num_exp.
tab high_quartile_numexp shows the same problem I originally had
le_numexp | Freq. Percent Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
0 | 1,433 80.64 80.64
1 | 344 19.36 100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
Total | 1,777 100.00
Also, I checked egenmore is already installed in my Stata version 13.1
What I fail to understand is why the dummy variable based on the highest quartile doesn't have 75% of observations below it (I've got 1777 total observations): to my understanding this dummy variable should be the cut-off point above which exactly 25% of the total no. of observations should lie (as we can see it contains only 19.3% of observations).
Am I doing anything wrong in writing the correct Stata code for high_quartile low_quartile dummy variables?

Consider the following code:
clear
set more off
sysuse auto
keep make mpg
*-----
// your way (kind of)
egen mpg4 = xtile(mpg), nq(4)
gen lowq = mpg4 == 1
gen highq = mpg4 == 4
*-----
// what you want
summarize mpg, detail
gen lowq2 = mpg < r(p25)
gen highq2 = mpg < r(p75)
*-----
summarize high* low*
list
Now check the listing to see what's going on.
See help stored results.

The dataset provided answers the question. Consider the tabulation:
. tab W_num_exp
num_execs_i |
ntl_exp, |
Winsorized |
fraction |
.01 | Freq. Percent Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
0 | 297 16.71 16.71
1 | 418 23.52 40.24
2 | 436 24.54 64.77
3 | 282 15.87 80.64
4 | 171 9.62 90.26
5 | 109 6.13 96.40
6 | 34 1.91 98.31
7 | 30 1.69 100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
Total | 1,777 100.00
Exactly equal numbers in each of 4 quartile-based bins can be provided if, and only if, there are values with cumulative percents 25, 50, 75. No such values exist. You have to make do with approximations. The approximations can be lousy, but the only alternative, of arbitrarily assigning observations with the same value to different bins to even up frequencies, is statistically indefensible.
(The number of observations needing to be a multiple of 4 for 4 bins, etc., for exactly equal frequencies is also a complication, which bites hard for small datasets, but that is not the major issue here.)

Related

tabstat: How to sort/order the output by a certain variable?

I gathered some NBA players' data of their triple-double games, and would like to find out who got the most explosive data on average.
The source is "Basketball Reference - Player Game Finder - Triple Doubles".(Sorry that I can't post the direct url because of the lack of reputation)
So I generated a table summarizing descriptive statistics (e.g. count mean) for several variables (pts trb ast stl blk) usingļ¼š
tabstat pts trb ast stl blk, statistics(count mean) format(%9.1f) by(player)
What I get is the following table:
tabstat result:
How can I tell Stata to filter the players by count >= 10 (who got 10 or more triple-doubles ever) as a column then sort the table by pts and get:
Ideal result:
Like above, I would say Michael Jordan and James Harden are the Top 2 most explosive triple-double players and Darrell Walker is the most economic one.
Do study https://stackoverflow.com/help/mcve on how to present an example other people can work with straight away. Also, avoiding sports-specific jargon that won't be universally comprehensible and focusing more on the general programming problem would help. Fortunately, what you want seems clear nevertheless.
To do this you need to create a variable defining the order desired in advance of your tabstat call. To get it (value) labelled as you wish, use labmask (search labmask then download from the Stata Journal location given).
Here is some technique.
sysuse auto, clear
egen mean = mean(weight), by(rep78)
egen count = count(weight), by(rep78)
egen group = group(mean rep78) if count >= 5
replace group = -group
labmask group, values(rep78)
label var group "`: var label rep78'"
tabstat mpg weight , by(group) s(count mean) format(%1.0f)
Summary statistics: N, mean
by categories of: group (Repair Record 1978)
group | mpg weight
-------+--------------------
2 | 8 8
| 19 3354
-------+--------------------
3 | 30 30
| 19 3299
-------+--------------------
4 | 18 18
| 22 2870
-------+--------------------
5 | 11 11
| 27 2323
-------+--------------------
Total | 67 67
| 21 3030
----------------------------
Key details:
The grouping variable is based not only on the means you want to sort on but also on the original grouping variable, just in case there are ties on the means.
To get ordering from highest mean downwards, the grouping variable must be negated.
tabstat doesn't show variable labels in the body of the table. (Usually there wouldn't be enough space for them.)

Quintiles with different quantity of observations

I am using Stata and investigating the variable household net wealth NetWealth).
I want to construct the quintiles of this variable and use the following command--as you can see I use survey data and thus apply survey weights:
xtile Quintile = NetWealth [pw=surveyweight], nq(5)
Then I give the following command to check what I have obtained:
tab Quintile, sum(NetWealth)
This is the result:
Means, Standard Deviations and Frequencies of DN3001 Net wealth
5 |
quantiles |
of dn3001 |
-----------+-----------+
1 |1519.4221
|43114.959
| 154
-----------+-----------+
2 | 135506.67
| 74360.816
| 179
-----------+-----------+
3 | 396712.16
| 69715.49
| 161
-----------+-----------+
4 | 669065.69
| 111102.02
| 182
-----------+-----------+
5 | 2552620.5
| 3872350.9
| 274
-----------+-----------+
Total | 957419.29
| 2323329.8
| 950
Why do I get a different number of households in each quintile? In particular in the last quintile?
The only explanation that I can come up with is that when Stata constructs quintiles with xtile, it excludes from the computation those observations that present a replicate value of NetWealth. I have had this impression also while consulting the Stata material.
What do you think?
Your problem is not fully reproducible in so far as you don't give a self-contained example, but in general there is no puzzle here.
Often people seeking such binnings have a small problem in that their number of observations is not a multiple (meaning, exact multiple) of the number of quantile-based bins they want, but in your case that does not bite as calculation
. di 154 + 179 + 161 + 182 + 274
950
shows that you have 950 observations, which is 5 x 190.
The bigger deal -- here and almost always -- arises from Stata's rule that identical values in different observations must be assigned to the same bin. So, ties are likely to be the problem here.
You have perhaps three possible solutions. Only one involves direct coding.
Live with it.
Do something else. For example, why you are doing this any way? Why not use the original data?
Try a different boundary condition. To do that, just negate the variable and bin that version. Then values on the boundary will jump differently.
Adding random noise to separate ties is utterly indefensible in my view. It's not reproducible (except trivially using the same program and the same settings) and it will have different implications in terms of the same observations' values on other variables.
Here's an example where #3 doesn't help, but it sometimes does:
. sysuse auto, clear
(1978 Automobile Data)
. xtile bin5 = mpg, nq(5)
. gen negmpg = -mpg
. xtile bin5_2 = negmpg, nq(5)
. tab bin5
5 quantiles |
of mpg | Freq. Percent Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
1 | 18 24.32 24.32
2 | 17 22.97 47.30
3 | 13 17.57 64.86
4 | 12 16.22 81.08
5 | 14 18.92 100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
Total | 74 100.00
. tab bin5_2
5 quantiles |
of negmpg | Freq. Percent Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
1 | 19 25.68 25.68
2 | 12 16.22 41.89
3 | 16 21.62 63.51
4 | 13 17.57 81.08
5 | 14 18.92 100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
Total | 74 100.00
See also some discussion within Section 4 of this paper
I see no hint whatsoever in the documentation that xtile would omit observations in the way that you imply. You give no precise quotation supporting that. It would be perverse to exclude any non-missing values unless so instructed.
I don't comment directly here on use of pweights except that using pweights might be a complicating factor here.

how to calculate market value weighted price in stata [duplicate]

I'm using Stata, and I'm trying to compute the average price of firms' rivals in a market. I have data that looks like:
Market Firm Price
----------------------
1 1 100
1 2 150
1 3 125
2 1 50
2 2 100
2 3 75
3 1 100
3 2 200
3 3 200
And I'm trying to compute the average price of each firm's rivals, so I want to generate a new field that is the average values of the other firms in a market. It would look like:
Market Firm Price AvRivalPrice
------------------------------------
1 1 100 137.2
1 2 150 112.5
1 3 125 125
2 1 50 87.5
2 2 100 62.5
2 3 75 75
3 1 100 200
3 2 200 150
3 3 200 150
To do the average by group, I could use the egen command:
egen AvPrice = mean(price), by(Market)
But that wouldn't exclude the firm's own price in the average, and to the best of my knowledge, using the if qualifier would only change the observations it operated on, not the groups it averaged over. Is there a simple way to do this, or do I need to create loops and generate each average manually?
This is an old thread still of interest, so materials and techniques overlooked first time round still apply.
The more general technique is to work with totals. At its simplest, total of others = total of all - this value. In a egen framework that is going to look like
egen total = total(price), by(market)
egen n = total(!missing(price)), by(market)
gen avprice = (total - cond(missing(price), 0, price)) / cond(missing(price), n, n - 1)
The total() function of egen ignores missing values in its argument. If there are missing values, we don't want to include them in the count, but we can use !missing() which yields 1 if not missing and 0 if missing. egen's count() is another way to do this.
Code given earlier gives the wrong answer if missings are present as they are included in the count _N.
Even if a value is missing, the average of the other values still makes sense.
If no value is missing, the last line above simplifies to
gen avprice = (total - price) / (n - 1)
So far, this possibly looks like no more than a small variant on previous code, but it does extend easily to using weights. Presumably we want a weighted average of others' prices given some weight. We can exploit the fact that total() works on expressions, which can be more complicated than just variable names. Indeed the code above did that already, but it is often overlooked.
egen wttotal = total(weight * price), by(market)
egen sumwt = total(weight), by(market)
gen avprice = (wttotal - price * weight) / (sumwt - weight)
As before, if price or weight is ever missing, you need more complicated code, or just to ensure that you exclude such observations from the calculations.
See also the Stata FAQ
How do I create variables summarizing for each individual properties of the other members of a group?
http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/data-management/creating-variables-recording-properties/
for a wider-ranging discussion.
(If the numbers get big, work with doubles.)
EDIT 2 March 2018 That was a newer post in an old thread, which in turn needs updating. rangestat (SSC) can be used here and gives one-line solutions. Not surprisingly, the option excludeself was explicitly added for these kinds of problem. But while the solution for means is easy using an identity
mean for others = (total - value for self) / (count - 1)
many other summary measures don't yield to a similar, simple trick and in that sense rangestat includes much more general coding.
clear
input Market Firm Price
1 1 100
1 2 150
1 3 125
2 1 50
2 2 100
2 3 75
3 1 100
3 2 200
3 3 200
end
rangestat (mean) Price, interval(Firm . .) by(Market) excludeself
list, sepby(Market)
+----------------------------------+
| Market Firm Price Price_~n |
|----------------------------------|
1. | 1 1 100 137.5 |
2. | 1 2 150 112.5 |
3. | 1 3 125 125 |
|----------------------------------|
4. | 2 1 50 87.5 |
5. | 2 2 100 62.5 |
6. | 2 3 75 75 |
|----------------------------------|
7. | 3 1 100 200 |
8. | 3 2 200 150 |
9. | 3 3 200 150 |
+----------------------------------+
This is a way that avoids explicit loops, though it takes several lines of code:
by Market: egen Total = total(Price)
replace Total = Total - Price
by Market: gen AvRivalPrice = Total / (_N-1)
drop Total
Here's a shorter solution with fewer lines that kind of combines your original thought and #onestop's solution:
egen AvPrice = mean(price), by(Market)
bysort Market: replace AvPrice = (AvPrice*_N - price)/(_N-1)
This is all good for a census of firms. If you have a sample of the firms, and you need to apply the weights, I am not sure what a good solution would be. We can brainstorm it if needed.

How to split a sample according to a certain variable in Stata?

I'd like to split a sample according to a specific variable, creating 4 sub-samples each one related to a quartile of the variable's distribution. The aim is to demonstrate that the presence of different levels of this variable influences the outcome of a regression, making it significant or not.
The easiest way to do this is to use the egen command to cut your variable into four equally-spaced intervals.
Example:
. sysuse auto, clear
(1978 Automobile Data)
. sum price, detail
Price
-------------------------------------------------------------
Percentiles Smallest
1% 3291 3291
5% 3748 3299
10% 3895 3667 Obs 74
25% 4195 3748 Sum of Wgt. 74
50% 5006.5 Mean 6165.257
Largest Std. Dev. 2949.496
75% 6342 13466
90% 11385 13594 Variance 8699526
95% 13466 14500 Skewness 1.653434
99% 15906 15906 Kurtosis 4.819188
. egen price_cut = cut(price), group(4)
. table price_cut, contents(n price min price max price)
----------------------------------------------
price_cut | N(price) min(price) max(price)
----------+-----------------------------------
0 | 18 3,291 4,187
1 | 19 4,195 4,934
2 | 18 5,079 6,303
3 | 19 6,342 15,906
----------------------------------------------
I hope this helps you.
This is the easiest way you can go about it:
xtile xx=yourvariable, nq(4)
I hope this helps.

Using if qualifier with egen in Stata

I'm using Stata, and I'm trying to compute the average price of firms' rivals in a market. I have data that looks like:
Market Firm Price
----------------------
1 1 100
1 2 150
1 3 125
2 1 50
2 2 100
2 3 75
3 1 100
3 2 200
3 3 200
And I'm trying to compute the average price of each firm's rivals, so I want to generate a new field that is the average values of the other firms in a market. It would look like:
Market Firm Price AvRivalPrice
------------------------------------
1 1 100 137.2
1 2 150 112.5
1 3 125 125
2 1 50 87.5
2 2 100 62.5
2 3 75 75
3 1 100 200
3 2 200 150
3 3 200 150
To do the average by group, I could use the egen command:
egen AvPrice = mean(price), by(Market)
But that wouldn't exclude the firm's own price in the average, and to the best of my knowledge, using the if qualifier would only change the observations it operated on, not the groups it averaged over. Is there a simple way to do this, or do I need to create loops and generate each average manually?
This is an old thread still of interest, so materials and techniques overlooked first time round still apply.
The more general technique is to work with totals. At its simplest, total of others = total of all - this value. In a egen framework that is going to look like
egen total = total(price), by(market)
egen n = total(!missing(price)), by(market)
gen avprice = (total - cond(missing(price), 0, price)) / cond(missing(price), n, n - 1)
The total() function of egen ignores missing values in its argument. If there are missing values, we don't want to include them in the count, but we can use !missing() which yields 1 if not missing and 0 if missing. egen's count() is another way to do this.
Code given earlier gives the wrong answer if missings are present as they are included in the count _N.
Even if a value is missing, the average of the other values still makes sense.
If no value is missing, the last line above simplifies to
gen avprice = (total - price) / (n - 1)
So far, this possibly looks like no more than a small variant on previous code, but it does extend easily to using weights. Presumably we want a weighted average of others' prices given some weight. We can exploit the fact that total() works on expressions, which can be more complicated than just variable names. Indeed the code above did that already, but it is often overlooked.
egen wttotal = total(weight * price), by(market)
egen sumwt = total(weight), by(market)
gen avprice = (wttotal - price * weight) / (sumwt - weight)
As before, if price or weight is ever missing, you need more complicated code, or just to ensure that you exclude such observations from the calculations.
See also the Stata FAQ
How do I create variables summarizing for each individual properties of the other members of a group?
http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/data-management/creating-variables-recording-properties/
for a wider-ranging discussion.
(If the numbers get big, work with doubles.)
EDIT 2 March 2018 That was a newer post in an old thread, which in turn needs updating. rangestat (SSC) can be used here and gives one-line solutions. Not surprisingly, the option excludeself was explicitly added for these kinds of problem. But while the solution for means is easy using an identity
mean for others = (total - value for self) / (count - 1)
many other summary measures don't yield to a similar, simple trick and in that sense rangestat includes much more general coding.
clear
input Market Firm Price
1 1 100
1 2 150
1 3 125
2 1 50
2 2 100
2 3 75
3 1 100
3 2 200
3 3 200
end
rangestat (mean) Price, interval(Firm . .) by(Market) excludeself
list, sepby(Market)
+----------------------------------+
| Market Firm Price Price_~n |
|----------------------------------|
1. | 1 1 100 137.5 |
2. | 1 2 150 112.5 |
3. | 1 3 125 125 |
|----------------------------------|
4. | 2 1 50 87.5 |
5. | 2 2 100 62.5 |
6. | 2 3 75 75 |
|----------------------------------|
7. | 3 1 100 200 |
8. | 3 2 200 150 |
9. | 3 3 200 150 |
+----------------------------------+
This is a way that avoids explicit loops, though it takes several lines of code:
by Market: egen Total = total(Price)
replace Total = Total - Price
by Market: gen AvRivalPrice = Total / (_N-1)
drop Total
Here's a shorter solution with fewer lines that kind of combines your original thought and #onestop's solution:
egen AvPrice = mean(price), by(Market)
bysort Market: replace AvPrice = (AvPrice*_N - price)/(_N-1)
This is all good for a census of firms. If you have a sample of the firms, and you need to apply the weights, I am not sure what a good solution would be. We can brainstorm it if needed.