Nick
[email protected]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of David Kantor
> Sent: 17 October 2006 14:17
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: st: Wide to Panel
>
>
> At 08:24 AM 10/17/2006, Alice Dobson wrote:
> >Hi all,
> >I have a datafile containing an unabalanced panel of firms
> for a period of
> >around 10 years. This file contains data on around five
> variables. I have
> >procured additional data on around 15 firm-level variables
> for these set of
> >firms. However, the problem is that each variable is in a
> different excel
> >file and that too in a wide format. I can transfer these
> files into stata
> >format using stat transfer. Could anyone please tell me if
> its possible to
> >convert these multiple data files into one datafile in the
> panel format?
> >
> >Each individual file for a single variable looks like this.
> There are 15
> >such files, one for each varible. The numberf of firms is
> too large and
> >hence will take a lot of time to do by hand.
> >
> >FIRM 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991
> 1992 1993 1994
> >
> >FIRM1 100 123 124 3001 293 324 512 413
> >FIRM2
> >FIRM3
> >FIRM4
> >:
> >:
> >:
> >:
> >FIRM1002
> >
> >
> >Best,
> >Alice
>
> Start by Stat/Transferring these into Stata.
>
> But your column names of "1985", "1986" , etc. will get rendered as,
> I believe, "_1985", "_1986", etc..
>
> Each of those needs to be further renamed to have a common prefix
> that is distinct for the given table. Presumably, each table is one
> variable, so the prefix should correspond to that variable. Thus, if
> the table is "number of employees" you should rename the variables
> something like
> nemp1985, nemp1986, etc.
> If your table is about revenue, then name them rev1985, rev1985, etc.
>
> (You could, alternatively, change the column names in the Excel
> tables. But in any case, for the transfer to go smoothly, the Excel
> tables need to be "clean" -- have just the column names in the first
> row, and the data in all subsequent rows.)
>
> Do this for each table.
> Then you will want to merge all the tables together.
>
> Presumably you also want to -reshape wide-. That could come before
> or after the merge.
>
> Hope this helps.
> --David
>
> *
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> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
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