st: Re: no room to add more variables...

["Michael Blasnik" <michael.blasnik@verizon.net>]

John Worrall <worrall@utdallas.edu> wrote:
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 3:45 PM
Subject: st: no room to add more variables...
> I have a panel dataset of about 3800 cases over 12 years (45625
> observations).  I'm estimating fixed effects models, so I assume that
> adds unit dummies.  I enter year dummies manually.  I also have some
> "growth cells" that are dummies (768 in total).  Altogether, my
> variables, unit dummies, year dummies, and growth cells = just shy of
> 4600 variables.  My system has .99GB Ram.  The data file is 39873KB.  I
> have set maxvar, memory, and matsize to various sizes.  I either get
> the "no room to add more variables due to width" or it takes an
> eternity to run the model--longer than I want to wait.  Any ideas?  Do
> I need more memory?
Short answer: Yes.

Better answer:  Who knows?

You need to be much more specific and follow Statalist advice to tell us exactly 
what you typed.  What memory settings did you try?  What fixed effects estimator 
are you using?  How big is the dataset after you add the "growth cells"?  Are 
those added variables bytes?  How long is an "eternity"?  Have you closed all 
other running programs to maximize the physical memory available to Stata?  By 
the way, most (all?) of Stata's fixed effects estimators do not add unit 
dummies -- the unit effects are conditioned out in the estimation process.  So I 
would guess that you actually have about (4600-3800) 800 variables.  No way to 
really tell what the best settings would be for your machine without more 
details.

Michael Blasnik 
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