Problems using cem

[Sara Urbina]

Hello,

I am having problems using coarsened exact matching (cem) on Stata.

when running the command

cem insaic_lag2 insaic_lag3 insaic_lag4 insaic_lag5 insaic_lag6 realyinsaic_lag1Caguas Bayamon Mayaguez Ponce SanJuan Aguadilla Arecibo Carolina Guayama Humacao, treatment(audited) k2k

I get back this error:

 cemStata():  3001  expected 6 arguments but received 7
                 <istmt>:     -  function returned error

Due to the permissions on my laptop (pertaining to existing next.trk file) i could not install

ssc  install cem

I also tried running the following command, but also get an error message.

net from http://gking.harvard.edu/cem/

To get around this, I created separate .ado files for cem.ado and cem-mata.ado, and a manually added the lcem.mlib file to my c:\ado\plus/ file. May the error lie here?

Any insights would be very helpful.

Thank you
Sara

[Richard Williams]

To back up, are you unable to install any SSC packages on your laptop? Or is it just cem? You might try

ssc uninstall cem
ssc install cem

[Sara Urbina]

Yes, I am unable to install SSC. When I install an SSC command i receive a "next. trk File already exists error" and am unable to erase it.

I tried running the example file they provide here, and it seems to be running fine. I suspect the error must be related to how I am defining the variables.

Thank you for your response, and any other insights are again, appreciated.
Sara

[Richard Williams]

Well, my first impulse would be to rename stata.trk and then see if I can install cem. Maybe stata.trk is corrupted.

[Sara Urbina]

I got it working. I was able to run it using do "url".
Thank you, again

[miroslav suchanec]

Hi, after runnig cem I receive this error message: file c:\ado\plus/c/cem-mata.do not found
Can anyone help? (I tried to reinstall, but does not help)

[Richard Williams]

I assume you got this from SSC? cem-mata.do is listed as an ancillary file, and is not automatically installed. Try

ssc install cem, all

[miroslav suchanec]

Thank you, the file was succesfully copied however error message still occurs..

[Richard Williams]

Did it get copied to the right location? You want it in c:\ado\plus/c/

[miroslav suchanec]

Yes, it did, only problem that comes on my mind could be that it is not *.do file but *.ado file. If I go back to that error message it says: "file c:\ado\plus/c/cem-mata.do not found
(error occurred while loading cem.ado)". But I wonder why stata says *.do file when it suppose to be *.ado file.

[Rich Goldstein]

looking at the ado file, I see that "cem-mata.do" is called in the very last line and it is called using a local; show us the result of:

di c(sysdir_plus)
adopath

[miroslav suchanec]

.
. adopath
[1] (BASE) "C:\Program Files (x86)\Stata15\ado\base/"
[2] (SITE) "C:\Program Files (x86)\Stata15\ado\site/"
[3] "."
[4] (PERSONAL) "c:\ado\personal/"
[5] (PLUS) "c:\ado\plus/"
[6] (OLDPLACE) "c:\ado/"

[miroslav suchanec]

and what more, "cem-mata.do" file is not in my folder anymore. If I reinstall cem again (code : ssc install cem, all), the "cem-mata.do" file is not there.

[Richard Williams]

Can you provide a replicable example, e.g. using one of Stata's datasets? I have a feeling it is a problem on your end but maybe not.

[miroslav suchanec]

Thanks, it seems it is working now. I found that "cem-mata.do" file by chance in totally unexpected location and after copying it into right place it looks like it is working now. I dont know how that file was created and how it ended there but it is working. I am pretty sure, that for the first time it was *.ado file and not *.do file. Anyway, thanks a lot. Miroslav