st: Scatter plot of single variable at different times

[Christian Raschke <crasch2@tigers.lsu.edu>]

Hi Stata-listers!

I have a panel data set in long format. I would like to make a scatter 
plot of a single variable observed at different time periods.

Below is a silly example. The example code below plots individuals' log 
wages in 1968 against log wages in 1969. But I would like to know if 
there is a "cleaner" way to do this. Is there a way that I could select 
two different time periods and arrive at such a scatter plot without 
having to manually -reshape- my data each time?

webuse nlswork, clear
keep idcode year ln_wage
reshape wide ln_wage, i(idcode) j(year)
scatter ln_wage68 ln_wage69

If there is anything built into Stata, or if there is any user-written 
ssc command that does exactly this, I would appreciate a hint in that 
direction.

Thanks!

Christian Raschke


*
*   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/