Creating ranks in panel data

[Tom Engel]

Dear Members,

I am quiet new to Stata and need your help regarding a problem:

I have panel data and for every time period I want to create a new variable, which is the average of a rank of the observations in t-4/-8/-12/-16/-20 on an existing variable for the time periods t-4 to t-23.
I think I am able to compute the average of the ranks in t-4/-8/-12/-16/-20 with the L. function, but I struggle creating the rank itself, because each observation has various ranks since it appears in several time periods of t-4 to t-23.

I hope you get my problem.
Thanks in advance for all answers.

Best regards,
Tom Engel

[Phil Bromiley]

You didn't get a quick answer. You'll increase your chances of a useful reply by following the FAQ on asking questions - provide Stata code in code delimiters, Stata output, and sample data using dataex.

You can easily create lags using generate. Then you can create ranks using egen with a by modifier. You can move those around with L. or F. operators as well.