st: generate obs. according to some distribution

["Moon Joong" <mj_52@hotmail.com>]

Dear Stata lovers:

Hi. I'm trying to generate a variable with obs. that takes certain vlues 
according to some distribution. I was wondering if anyone know any 
code/method to make the work easier and faster (since I have a lot). The 
example is following:

Let's say there are two variables - scale (that has certain values) and rate 
(rates corresponding to the values of scale that adds up 100%) - with 5 
observation.

scale       rate
1           .3
2           .05
3           .2
4           .15
5           .3

Now I want to generate and create a variable with, say, 100 observations 
that contain the values of scale (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, or, 5) according to the 
distribution of rate.

All I know is to do like this:

gen sum = sum(rate);

list sum;

sum
.3
.35
.55
.7
1

gen scale2 = 1 in 1/30;
replace scale2 = 2 in 31/35;
replace scale2 = 3 in 36/55;
replace scale2 = 4 in 56/70;
replace scale2 = 5 in 71/100;

And then I can get the variable called "scale2" that have 100 observation 
with values of scale according to the distribution of rate.

But since I have a lot of variables to create like that and the actual scale 
takes more than 5 values, it takes really long time.

Please let me know anyone know any easier way than the above method.

Thanks a lot in advance!!

Moonjoong



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