Re: st: Tracking attrition in a long-shaped dataset

[Max <maxliving@gmail.com>]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the quick response. Let me clarify. Month is a whole
number, representing a time period, so a person might appear in month
=1, month=2, month=4, but not month=3. In that case, he would have
skipped month 3. Thus, using the code in #1 I would code him as having
returned in the first row he appears (month=1), but not in the second
row (month). So yes, month increments by 1, but time marches on
regardless of whether a person appears in that month or not.

Does that make more sense? If not, do let me know and I'd be happy to
clarify further.

Max

On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 10:44 AM, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote:
> What your -month- variable is holding is unclear to me.
>
> In terms of your questions
>
> #1. It is evident that
>
> month == month[_n+1] - 1
>
> is true if and only -month- increases by 1 from one observation to the next.
>
> It's difficult to check that against your word description. Usually
> with panel data, there is a time variable and then all the business is
> centred on what is or is not true at different times. Here you seem to
> be focussing entirely on the time variable.
>
> #2. Understanding this depends on understanding #1, and evidently failed.
>
> If you don't get a better answer, you will need to ask a better question.
>
> Nick
>
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 2:19 PM, Max <maxliving@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I have a long dataset of ID's (people) and months. People enter and leave
>> the dataset at various points, and can skip months. I want to track
>> attrition by doing two things:
>> 1. Create a dummy variable = 1 in time t if the person appears in time t+1,
>> 0 otherwise (but missing for the last month). I think I've solved this one,
>> but am always curious to hear if anyone has any alternate methods that
>> might be better. Here is my solution:
>>
>> bysort ID (month): gen returned = 1 if month == month[_n+1] - 1
>>
>> 2. And this is where I'm stuck. I want to create a dummy variable = 1 in
>> time t if the person appears in time t+2, regardless of whether they appear
>> in time t+1 or not. I tried:
>>
>> bysort ID (month): gen returned_2month = 1 if (month == month[_n+2] - 2)
>>
>> But that didn't work because someone who, say, appears in months 1 and 3
>> will not have an entry for month[_n+2]. But they should in fact be coded as
>> a 1.
>>
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