add the following remarks:
The SAS code we try to imitate is in fact somewhat faulty (or at least
poorly designed) - the stated purpose is to generate a series of values
based on equally spaced ln_time points, but this code is NOT generating what
is claimed, because clearly we are NOT getting "evenly spaced points" - the
last step in LN_TIME (from 500 to 501) is shorter then other steps by as
much as 11% (just take a look at the SAS results). This comes out as a
consequence of a poorly designed loop, where it accumulates error in the
increment definition, so the required final value of 30 years (360 months)
is never produced by the loop and this has to be brutally remedied by
calculating point #501 separately, outside the loop.
The required series can be generated by:
clear
set obs 501
gen ln_time = (_n - 1)*(1 + ln(360))/500 - 1
gen months = exp(ln_time)
gen years = months/12
Double precision is not really necessary here (one thinks), since the
original SAS code seemingly doesn't mind the rough definition of the
increment involved. If one absolutely insists on reproducing (faulty) SAS
results, just run:
clear
set obs 501
gen ln_time = (_n - 1)*(1 + ln(360))/499.9 - 1
gen months = exp(ln_time)
gen years = months/12
replace ln_time = ln(360) in 501
replace months = 360 in 501
replace years = 30 in 501
which illustrates the point nicely.
Daniel
-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher F Baum [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 6:57 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: st: Re: SAS -> Stata
On Thursday, August 28, 2003, at 02:33 AM, Kevin wrote:
> I believe the below do-file should generate the data that SAS would
> generate. The only problem I could not solve was how to get the last
> observations exactly like it appeared in SAS. If you could explain
> what the
> below syntax does in SAS I believe I could recreate the results in
> Stata.
>
>
>
> BY INC,LN_MAX;
>
>
>
> Below is the do-file.
>
>
>
> clear
>
> local logmax = log(360)
>
> local inc = ((1+`logmax')/499.9)
>
> local obs = 0
>
>
>
> generate logtime = .
>
>
>
> local logmax = `logmax' + `inc'
>
>
>
> forvalues i = -1(`inc')`logmax' {
>
> local obs = `obs' + 1
>
> qui set obs `obs'
>
> qui replace logtime = `i' in `obs'
>
> }
>
>
>
> gen months = exp(logtime)
>
> gen year = months/12
>
>
This can (and probably should) be done without an explicit loop. Loops
are familiar to SAS users, but hardly appropriate in Stata's syntax:
clear
set obs 501
scalar logmax = log(360)
g obs = _n
g double inc = -1
replace inc = ((1+logmax)/499.9) in 2/l
g double logtime = sum(inc)
g double year = exp(logtime)/12
list in 499/l
Kit
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