ECO 6175—Stata Help and Resources

Taylor Wright

January 21, 2019

1 Where to get help

If you’re unsure of something in Stata the first thing to do is to type “help” followed by the command

you’re trying to use or learn more about. If you don’t know the command you want but know what you’re

trying to do, try using “search” or “findit” followed by some relevant keywords.

If you’re stuck and the internal Stata support isn’t working for you then searching the web is a great next

step. Websites like StackExchange and the Stata forum will often have people asking similar questions,

if not the identical question! If your question hasn’t been asked, make a post but be sure to read the

guidelines for posting to maximize the chances of receiving a helpful reply. Check out this website for tips

on how to ask questions in a “smart” way: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

2 Resources

The Stata session for this course is merely an introduction into some basic functions of Stata like

opening data sets, making graphs, and running simple regressions. There are plenty of great Stata

guides that are just a web search away and cover things like programming, graphics, and more ad-

vanced statistical commands. The Stata website has a list of useful resources for those learning Stata:

https://www.stata.com/links/resources-for-learning-stata/. An introductory book for further learning is

Baum [2016]. Some other Stata resources that give guidance on implementing the techniques learned in this

course are Cameron and Trivedi [2010], https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/miguel-hernan/causal-inference-

book/, and http://scunning.com/mixtape.html.

Replication is at the center of science and has been a growing concern in social science in recent years.

Having a good workflow helps ensure replication and can save many headaches in the long run. Some

resources on developing a good workflow in Stata are Long [2009] and Knittel and Metaxoglou [2016]. Feel

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free to look for resources not geared specifically towards Stata as many principles and concepts will still

apply (the language R in particular has much written about this).

Lastly, I want to link to a Stata command cheat sheet that I think is very useful:

https://www.stata.com/bookstore/statacheatsheets.pdf

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References

Christopher F. Baum. An Introduction to Stata Programming, Second Edition. Stata Press College Station,

2016.

Adrian Colin Cameron and Pravin K Trivedi. Microeconometrics using stata, volume 2. Stata press College

Station, TX, 2010.

MA Hernan and JM Robins. Causal Inference. Boca Raton: Chapman Hall/CRC, forthcoming.

Christopher R. Knittel and Konstantinos Metaxoglou. Working with Data: Two Empiricists’ Experience.

Journal of Econometric Methods, 2016.

J. Scott Long. The Workflow of Data Analysis using Stata. Stata Press College Station, 2009.