Dear statalist,
I have a query about using the poisson distribution and transformed variables. I have a panel data set with mortality information (DV) from 74 countries from 1980 to 2006. I have transformed the DV using a square-root transformation. Previously I have been estimating this DV using xtreg fe, re and xtabond2. However, someone mentioned to me that I should try and use the poisson distribution in my estimation techniques. I have tried this using xtgee but this will not run on some of my clusters (due to missing data?). Also, I am not sure whether I can run a dynamic model such as xtabond2 using the poisson distrubution.
I have noticed that other research papers have not bothered to use a poisson distribution and merely used transformed DV scores. Is it neccessary that I use a poisson distribution?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
Allison
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
