panel data / exploratory analysis

[Robert Biggert]

I need to do some exploratory analysis with some panel data. The cross section is American states (48) and time is years (25). I need to calculate the median and interquartile range for each state. Then store the values of these two measures as two variables (n=48) with each case identified by state. Suggestions? Thanks, RB

[David Radwin]

It's not clear how your data are structured, but if the year is a variable (that is, your data are "long"), you could try something like this:

. collapse (iqr) iqr = varname (mean) mean = varname, by(state)

varname is whatever variable you want. See first example in help for collapse.

If your data are "wide," you might reshape your data first.

David