Notes

From time to time, there will be questions in class that I cannot answer in the moment. It may that there isn’t enough time or, equally likely, that I’ve managed to confuse even myself and need some time to formulate a useful answer. Hopefully the notes below will clarify some issues that have arisen in class this semester.

Binning a continuous variable

When splitting a continuous variable into groups, it makes a difference whether you think the distribution is fixed and the cut points should vary depending on the percentile value or you believe that the cuts should be fixed and that the values of the continuous variable should fall into bins according to those cuts. The following do file shows how to cut a continuous variable both ways and the difference that the choice in procedure makes for how observations are grouped.

FILE

quantilenote.do

Using erase to remove files

If you choose to store a large dataset in zipped form, only expanding it when you wish to subset parts of it for your analysis, it does not make sense to keep the fully expanded version in your directory as well. In lecture 3 we discussed how to unzip, subset, and save reduced NCES data files. The code did not include the final step of erasing the expanded file. The following do file, along with the accompanying zip file, shows you how to incorporate this last step. Be aware, however, that Stata’s erase command is permanent and work with caution.

NOTE: Unlike in class, the do file and zipped data file should placed in the same directory.

FILES

erasenote.do
erasenote_data.zip

Variance estimates of inverse weighted means

In the first lesson on sampling design, we discussed the use of inverse probability weights to compute a more accurate estimate of a population mean. We noted that in the class example, the estimate of the standard error of the mean increased. Is this always the case?

FILES

weightsnote.do