Re: st: RE: RE: Displaying values less than one with a zero in front of the comma

[Chris Ruebeck <ruebeckc@lafayette.edu>]

In regards to #1, I think we should all develop a taste for including 
the leading zero.  Whether or not that requires a law in Stata or 
elsewhere is open to discussion.

As regards economics.  What's important in results are (usually in 
decreasing order) significance, sign, and size.  This doesn't require 
more than 2, maybe 3, digits in the mantissa.  You're right, the logic 
of significant digits doesn't differ from elsewhere, just the 
reliability of the data and---more crucially---the model.  Since this 
is probably true for most social scientists using Stata and it's 
probably true that most people using Stata are
social scientists, singling out economics was unnecessary.

Chris


On Feb 21, 2005, at 5:51 PM, Nick Cox wrote:

> > I second two of Nick's ideas.  (1) Always use the leading zero, 
> > although having the option to decide whether or not it's included in 
> > all formats is fine.
> Whoa, just a small point please! I said I like this myself, not that 
> it should be the law!
>
>
> > (2) More flexibility in applying different formats to different parts 
> > of the display.  I'm frustrated, in particular, when I want to use a 
> > fixed format but different variables' coefficients in my regression 
> > either have a different number of significant digits or (since the 
> > concept of significant digits is questionable in economics) different 
> > magnitudes of the least significant digit.  Example 1: I'd rather see 
> > 0.023 and
> > 0.0032 instead of either 0.0231 and 0.0032 or 2.3E-2 and 3.2E-3.  
> > Example 2: I'd rather see 2.3 and 0.32 than either 2.31 and 0.32 or 
> > 2.3 and 3.2E-1.  ["and" takes precedence over "or" in parsing these 
> > examples.]
> I am intrigued here. I don't understand the comment about economics. 
> Does the logic of showing economic numbers differ from that elsewhere?
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