st: how to (elegantly) take max of next five observations

[Caleb Southworth <caleb@uoregon.edu>]

I'm looking for a quick way to check the next five values in panel
dataset.

Data are
. tsset
       panel variable:  id (strongly balanced)
        time variable:  year, 1888 to 2005, but with gaps

This works:

bysort id (year): gen for5=max(mem, mem[_n+1], mem[_n+2], mem[_n+3],
mem[_n+4], mem[_n+5])

but involves the messy indexing. I would like something like this:

. egen for5=rowmax(F(1/5).mem_data)
time-series operators not allowed
r(101);

Thanks!

Caleb
caleb@uoregon.edu
University of Oregon Sociology
*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/