Your primary concern should be the unbalanced panels. Does t - 1 mean
what it says, or you intend the previous observation?
For _balanced panels_, one line of code
bysort i (t) : gen become = x == 1 & x[_n-1] == 0
gets you most if not all of the way.
The right-hand side (RHS)
x == 1 & x[_n-1] == 0
is either true (numerically 1) or false (numerically 0).
Benson is right to be concerned about boundary conditions.
For the first observation in each panel, we are asking whether
x[1] == 1 & x[0] == 0
subscripts being evaluated within panels under the aegis of -by:-.
But x[0] is evaluated as missing, and the RHS will be 0 (false).
If Benson wants . for the first observation in each panel, then you can
do this
bysort i (t) : gen become = cond(_n == 1, ., x == 1 & x[_n-1] == 0)
For _unbalanced panels_, you may want something more like
bysort i (t) : gen become = cond(_n == 1, ., x == 1 & L.x == 0)
Nick
[email protected]
Martin Weiss
See NJC`s FAQ: http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/data/panel.html
*********
clear*
set obs 20
egen float id = seq(), from(1) to(4) block(5)
egen float t = seq(), from(1) to(5) block(1)
g x=cond(runiform()<=0.5,0,1)
g byte become=.
bys id: replace become=cond(x[_n-1]==0 & x[_n]==1,1,0)
list, noo sepby(id)
***********
Benson Limann
>
> I am using an unbalanced panel dataset. i is ID and t is time. Every
(i,t)
> has a characteristic x=0 or 1.
>
> I want to generate a variable called "become" such that for each
(i,t):
>
> become=1, if x=0 at time t-1, and x=1 at time t
> become=0, otherwise
>
> How to write it? My primary concern is how to deal with the first t
for
> each i--this observation does not have t-1.
>
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