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Econ 390

Using STATA Part 1

Data Input

We will be using the STATA statistics package for this course. We will begin with inputting a dataset into STATA.

New STATA Commands:

1) clear

2) use

3) infix

4) save

5) summ

6) rename

7) keep

Note: STATA commands are case sensitive. I capitalized commands and variables (e.g. CLEAR, DVDES25...) in the notes because I want to highlight them. The variable names should be entered (could be either uppercase or lowercase, check the codebook) as in the original data.

1. Saving the datasets into your computer

The dataset (econ390.dta) is put under “lab” folder on Canvas.

To save it on the desktop of the lab computer, move your mouse cursor to the file name on Canvas and right click. You will see a new menu, choose “Save target as”.

Click “Desktop” on the left hand side of the next new menu, then click “Save” on the lower right corner of the same menu.

The file will then be saved in the following directory location:

c:\Users\Arts User\Desktop

2. Clear STATA memory

Always begin your work with this STATA command:

clear

It clears the previous dataset from the memory. If not, you will get an error message.

3. Inputting your data into STATA for Data File with .dta

If your data file ends with extension .dta, they are STATA ready dataset. To input your data into STATA, the STATA command is USE. Just type in

use "c:\Users\Arts User\Desktop\econ390.dta"

Add Health dataset is with .dta extension.

4. Find the summary statistics of the dataset.

Once you have input the data into STATA, you can use the SUMM command to see what variables you have in the dataset and the summary statistics of the variables.

summ

You can see there are lots of variables you don’t need in the original data. You will learn how to keep only the variables you need in step 6.

5. Rename variables.

Usually the variables in the original dataset have names that are hard to recognize what they are: for example, DVDES25. You can rename those variables by using the RENAME command:

rename mtr tax

The above command rename variable mtr in the data to tax. Try the summ command to look at the variables in the data.

6. Keeping variables.

Usually the original dataset contains many variables that you don’t need for your study.

For example, the econ390.dta dataset contains 6 variables. Let’s say you just want to use 5 variables in your study: faminc, mard, age, rrsp and tax. You can get just keep the 5 variables you need in the data (and drop the rest) by using the KEEP command:

keep faminc mard age rrsp tax

Try the summ command again and you will see only those 5 variables remain in the dataset.

7. Saving datasets

You should keep the original dataset and create your own working dataset by using the SAVE command:

save "c:\Users\Arts User\Desktop\econ390test.dta"

So you can just work with the working dataset econ390test.dta and keep your original data untouched.

Codebook for Econ 390.dta:

The variables are derived from the 1984 version of the Family Expenditure Survey conducted by Statistics Canada.

Some frequently used STATA commands: