st: RE: normalize variables

["Nick Cox" <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>]

The word "normalize" here evidently means scale to a [0,1] range. 

Note first that using -egen- to do this is unnecessary unless you want
to do this panelwise. 

su x1, meanonly 
gen normal_x1 = (x1 - r(min)) / (r(max) - r(min)) 

If you want to do this panelwise, it does becomes convenient to use
-egen- as you say. 

What I don't understand is how your main question can be answered
without knowing why you want to do this and why you think that you
"must" normalize. The best answer I can offer is that your indexes will
vary depending on whether they calculated w.r.t. the entire dataset or
individual panels, and the choice between them is a scientific or
substantive one. 

Nick 
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk 

Evangelos.Constantinou@warwick.ac.uk

I am using panel data analysis and I want to generate an index but first
I
must normalise the variables (x1,x2) contained in the index. I
normalised
them by the following set of commands:

egen min_x1=min(x1)
egen max_x1=max(x1)
gen normal_x1=(x1-min_x1)/(max_x1-min_x1)

So, my question is whether I need to transform the commands to include
the
"by(.)" option i.e.

egen min_x1=min(x1), by(.)
egen max_x1=max(x1), by(.)
gen normal_x1=(x1-min_x1)/(max_x1-min_x1)

and if so, should i include the panel or time variable.


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