de la Garza, Adrian
> Nick, thank you very much. I was not familiar with this structure of
> generating variables by assigning them a value and adding extra
> conditions, like this:
>
> _n > 1
>
> I think I still need time to digest this as I don't
> understand very well
> the structure behind this command. It has certainly been very useful,
> though. Thank you.
Think of this as an expression to be evaluated. It doesn't come
as two parts,
_n
and
> 1
Rather it comes as one expression. Think of it as
(_n > 1)
if you wish. Either way, the FAQ at
http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/data/trueorfalse.html
may be useful. This material was also presented in
a tutorial on -by:- in Stata Journal 2(1), 2002.
> And just a comment about the way I want to construct this
> dummy (I guess
> you would code 1 for new and 0 for old), think of it as if the dummy
> signaled when the borrower has already "experience" in a particular
> market type. This construction is better for our own regression
> interpretation purposes.
No doubt. Let me expand on my comment. What I should have flagged
more explicitly is a rule of thumb often used: the name of the dummy
variable should match whichever state is 1. In my experience, having
it the other way round imposes more mental strain and every now and
again you forget the twist that you applied.
Naturally, your variable names are under
your control, but in your circumstances, as I'm looking on,
I would recommend changing the name.
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