st: Counting observations within groups

[Daniel Escher <descher@nd.edu>]

Hello,

I am trying to count the number of mines in a county by production.
I.e., I'd like the number of mines in each county that are above the
overall mean of production, and the number that are below. There are
multiple mines per county, which is identified by its FIPS code.
Missing data are marked by . The data are in long format.

Here's what I have so far:
. *bigmines = # of mines in a county above the overall mean
. *totprod = total production per mine
. *sic = type of mine

. *ATTEMPT ONE
. sort fips
. su totprod // to get mean
. by fips: egen bigmines = count(inrange(totprod, r(mean), .) &
sic==12110 | sic==11110)  // This gives me total number of mines per
FIPS code - not those that meet the criteria
. drop bigmines

. *ATTEMPT TWO
. su totprod // to get mean
. by fips: egen bigmines = total(mshahrs > r(mean) & sic==12110 |
sic==11110) // This gives me the total number of mines per FIPS code
if any mine exceeds the mean
. drop bigmines

. *ATTEMPT THREE
. *Then I read Nick Cox's helpful article
(http://www.stata-journal.com/sjpdf.html?articlenum=pr0029) which
clued me in to -count-:
. gen bigmines = 0
. su totprod
. count if inrange(totprod, r(mean), .) & sic==12110 | sic==11110
. replace bigmines = r(N)

The last attempt is what I want, and it "works." However, I don't know
how to -count- and then store r(N) for each FIPS code. Using -by- does
not seem to work. This probably requires a loop like...

forvalues j = all values of fips {
	count if inrange(mshahrs, r(mean), .) & sic==12110 | sic==11110
	replace bigmines_hrs = r(N)
}

Is this close? Thank you so much for your help and time.

Gratefully,
Daniel
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