My guess is that the underlying problem
is what is done with tied data.
Suppose you -sort- according to some -x-.
If the 12th, 13th, 14th values of -x- are
42, 42, 42 you are assigning them ranks of 12, 13, 14.
This will happen after every -sort- but
_which_ observation is ranked 12th is not
guaranteed to be the same. -sort- shakes up
the data first. From the point
of view of -sort-ing -x- alone, this is
immaterial, but it does make a difference
when -y- is also considered. Only if
the observations tie on both -x- and -y-
will it be irrelevant.
Otherwise put,
* The correct procedure given the desire
for a rank is to use -egen, rank()-
and so guarantee that tied values get
identical ranks.
* Your "data" are a bit different every
time, so the correlations
are not surprisingly a little different.
Nick
[email protected]
louis boakye-yiadom
> A -correlate- command in my do file gives slightly different
> results each
> time the file is executed. I'm baffled by this, and I don't find any
> explanation from the -help- for -correlate-. I've provided
> below, three of
> such different results, as well as, excerpts of the do file.
> Any help will
> be appreciated. Thank you.
>
>
> . correlate rankf1 rankf2;
> (obs=97)
>
> | rankf1 rankf2
> -------------+------------------
> rankf1 | 1.0000
> rankf2 | 0.7524 1.0000
>
>
> . correlate rankf1 rankf2;
> (obs=97)
>
> | rankf1 rankf2
> -------------+------------------
> rankf1 | 1.0000
> rankf2 | 0.7489 1.0000
>
>
> . correlate rankf1 rankf2;
> (obs=97)
>
> | rankf1 rankf2
> -------------+------------------
> rankf1 | 1.0000
> rankf2 | 0.7443 1.0000
>
>
> use isocomb_indices, clear;
> sort f1;
> list region district dmrd dmkt dpt djss dchp f1, clean header(50);
> gen rankf1=_n;
> sort f2;
> list region district pwrd pwmkt1 pwmkt2 pwjss pwchp f2, clean
> header(50);
> gen rankf2=_n;
> bysort region: list region district nc f1 rankf1 f2 rankf2,
> clean mean(f1
> rankf1 f2 rankf2);
> correlate rankf1 rankf2;
> drop rankf1 rankf2;
> sort region district;
> save isocomb_indices, replace;
> clear;
> log close;
> exit;
*
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