Average for a variable and over a time period

[Georgina Milliot]

Hey guys, I'm a Stata beginner and stuck on an issue. I'm using a cross-country and time panel data set. I'm trying to take the average (over the 15 year time period) for each country of a variable. Can someone please share the easiest way to accomplish this? For example, I have sub-Saharan countries (unit_id), over the time period (year), and variables (e.g. aid, conflict).

Any help would be really appreciated!

Thanks,
Gina

[Maye Ehab]

Hi Georgina,

Welcome on board.

You can use the collapse function...

preserve 
collapse (mean) aid conflict, by(unit_id)
table aid conflict, by(unit_id)

Make sure to use the -preserve- command to be able to get your data again in their original format.

Good luck!
Best,
Maye

[ben earnhart]

Alternatively, -egen- will get you the averages without needing to discard cases. This way you could use your country-averages in further analyses without any extra steps like merging them back onto the original data..

sort unit_id
egen meanaid=mean(aid), by(unit_id)

[Georgina Milliot]

Thank you Maye and Ben! I ended up using the generate mean, by function!