st: RE: Identifying first observation in each panel of unbalanced panel

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

Your code looks fine to me, so I have difficulty understanding why you think it doesn't work. 

The -sort- on the second command is unnecessary given the previous command, but I don't see that it will change the sort order. 

You can check logic in terms of this example: 

. webuse grunfeld

. su year

    Variable |       Obs        Mean    Std. Dev.       Min        Max
-------------+--------------------------------------------------------
        year |       200      1944.5    5.780751       1935       1954

. drop if year == 1935 & mod(company, 2)
(5 observations deleted)

. tab year

       year |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
       1935 |          5        2.56        2.56
       1936 |         10        5.13        7.69
       1937 |         10        5.13       12.82
       1938 |         10        5.13       17.95
       1939 |         10        5.13       23.08
       1940 |         10        5.13       28.21
       1941 |         10        5.13       33.33
       1942 |         10        5.13       38.46
       1943 |         10        5.13       43.59
       1944 |         10        5.13       48.72
       1945 |         10        5.13       53.85
       1946 |         10        5.13       58.97
       1947 |         10        5.13       64.10
       1948 |         10        5.13       69.23
       1949 |         10        5.13       74.36
       1950 |         10        5.13       79.49
       1951 |         10        5.13       84.62
       1952 |         10        5.13       89.74
       1953 |         10        5.13       94.87
       1954 |         10        5.13      100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
      Total |        195      100.00

. bysort company (year) : gen first = _n == 1

. l company year  if first

     +----------------+
     | company   year |
     |----------------|
  1. |       1   1936 |
 20. |       2   1935 |
 40. |       3   1936 |
 59. |       4   1935 |
 79. |       5   1936 |
     |----------------|
 98. |       6   1935 |
118. |       7   1936 |
137. |       8   1935 |
157. |       9   1936 |
176. |      10   1935 |
     +----------------+

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

Ivan Png

I am analyzing an unbalanced panel of company data, organized by
company (gvkey) and year.  I want to create  a flag to the first
observation of each company in the panel.  I tried

 . sort gvkey year
 . by gvkey , sort: gen flag = 1 if  _n == 1

However, this only flagged flag = 1 if a company was present in year 1
of the panel.  It missed any company that appeared in later years.

I searched statalist and found this:
http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2005-04/msg00334.html

But it doesn't work.  I'd be grateful for any relevant help.

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