This is a common problem and the good news is that
you have yet to discover the power of -by:-, the
most Stataish of all Stata's features.
You want something like
gen test = employ if industry == <whatever>
sort state county year test
by state county year: replace test = test[1]
or (more concisely)
gen test = employ if industry == <whatever>
bysort state county year (test): replace test = test[1]
On the -sort-
sort state country year test
the observations with non-missing -test- are sorted
to the first observation within each -state county year-
combination. Then the others can be replaced by
the first value in each block.
A Mickey and Minnie tutorial on -by:- is at
SJ-2-1 pr0004 . . . . . . . . . . Speaking Stata: How to move step by: step
Q1/02 SJ 2(1):86-102 (no commands)
explains the use of the by varlist : construct to tackle
a variety of problems with group structure, ranging from
simple calculations for each of several groups to more
advanced manipulations that use the built-in _n and _N
and several FAQs, particularly on data management, given further
examples.
Nick
[email protected]
Gregor Franz
> How can I make observations in a variable take on the value of a
> specific observation within this variable? For example, I
> have employees
> by industry in each county in each state for several years. I want to
> create a variable that is equal to employees in industry = x for each
> county and state by year for all observations. If I type gen test=
> employees if industry ==x, I only get one observation each year, by
> county and state, but I want the rest of the (now missing)
> obesrvations
> in variable 'test' (which in the original variable
> 'employees' take on
> the values by different industries) to take on the value of
> industry x.
> So in the end all observations for the variable 'test' would take on
> the value of industry x.by county state and year.
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