st: identifying last name/first name inversions inadministrative datasets

[Pierre Azoulay <pierre.azoulay@gmail.com>]

Let me thank you for your suggestions and share with you the solution
I adopted, coutesy of the stata help desk:

. generate newid =0

. forvalues i = 1/`=_N' {
  2.   quietly replace newid = `i' if inlist(fname,fname[`i'],lname[`i']) ///
>           & inlist(lname,fname[`i'],lname[`i'])
  3. }

. list fname lname newid, clean

           fname       lname   newid
  1.       Knuth   Alexander      11
  2.       Knuth   Alexander      11
  3.       Knuth   Alexander      11
  4.       Knuth   Alexander      11
  5.   Alexander       Knuth      11
  6.   Alexander       Knuth      11
  7.   Alexander       Knuth      11
  8.   Alexander       Knuth      11
  9.   Alexander       Knuth      11
 10.   Alexander       Knuth      11
 11.   Alexander       Knuth      11
 12.         Bob        Hope      13
 13.        Hope         Bob      13
 14.         Bob      Howard      15
 15.      Howard         Bob      15

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pierre Azoulay
Associate Professor of Management
Columbia University                           Phone: (212) 854-9684
Graduate School of Business                Fax:   Don't send any
3022 Broadway, Uris Hall 704
New York, NY 10023                        http://www.columbia.edu/~pa2009/

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