Re: st: non-integer frequencies?

[Richard Williams <Richard.A.Williams.5@nd.edu>]

At 09:49 PM 3/10/2004 -0600, ACHINTYA RAY wrote:
> Sample surveys oftentimes provide weights to convert sample estimates into
> representative population figures. Sometimes such frequency weights are not
> integers (For example, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
> III). It seems that Stata can only deal with integer frequency weights. Is
> there a solution? The best that I can do right now is to take the nearest
> integer to the non-integer frequencies. This method seems rather adhoc. Any
> help will be deeply appreciated.
I think iweights will work, at least if the command allows the use of 
iweights.  e.g. I just tried

. sum income

    Variable |       Obs        Mean    Std. Dev.       Min        Max
-------------+--------------------------------------------------------
      income |       500       27.79    8.973491          5       48.3

. sum income [fw=1.2]
may not use noninteger frequency weights
r(401);

. sum income [iw=1.2]

    Variable |     Obs      Weight        Mean   Std. 
Dev.       Min        Max
-------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------
      income 
|     500         600       27.79   8.971993          5       48.3

However, remember that, for purposes of statistical inference, the numbers 
you get are wrong.

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Richard Williams, Notre Dame Dept of Sociology
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