Re: st: Creating variables with values taken from other observations

[Jeph Herrin <stata@spandrel.net>]

I think you need to merge. Using your notation:

 preserve
 drop Rid
 ren Fid Rid
 ren Gender FGender
 keep Rid FGender
 sort Rid
 save friends, replace
 restore
 merge 1:1 using friends


hth,
Jeph


On 8/10/2010 8:36 AM, Mark McCann wrote:
> Hello folks,
>
>
> I've worked out a way to do this using excel, but I'd much prefer to keep everything in Stata instead of jumping back and forward every time I generate a variable along these lines.
>
>
> My data has three variables
>
> Respondent ID  -  Friend ID - Respondent Characteristic
>
> The best friend ids all correspond to another respondent's ID.
>
> I want to create a variable - best friend's characteristic.
>
> For each observation I want to take that observation's friend ID, find the observation that has this friend id value as its value for respondent ID, read this observation's characteristic value and create a new variable taking the characteristic's value for the original observation.
>
>
>
> Question again in table format because I know that description wasn't very clear
>
>
> I have data like this
>
> Rid	Fid	Gender
>
> 1	2	Female
> 2	5	Male
> 5	7	Missing
> .	.	.
> .	.	.
>
>
> How do I create this?
>
>
> Rid	Fid	Gender		Fgender
>
> 1	2	Female		Male
> 2	5	Male		Missing
> 5	7	Missing	etc.
> .	.	.		.
> .	.	.		.
>
> Is there a way to do this in Stata? I used gender as a reader-friendly example however I will be using predominantly numeric coding.
>
>
> 	Many thanks,		
> 		Mark McCann
>
>
> Research Statistician
> Improving Children's Lives
> Institute of Child Care Research
> Queen's University Belfast
> 6 College Park
> Belfast BT7 1LP
>
> Tel: +44(0)28 9097 3163
>
> Improvingchildrenslives.org
>
>
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