What does the keyword `control' at the end a regression command do?

[meshry ettolba]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to replicate a paper to get my self familiar with STATA. I the paper comes with a replication dataset and the necessary code. In all the regression commands in the replication code I see the keyword " 'control' ". My question is what does " 'control' " do? I run a few regressions with and without it, and the output seemed to be the same. Bellow you can see where the authors place the keyword in their code:

xi:xtreg depvar indepvars `control' ,fe cluster(country)

xi:oprobit depvar indepvars i.country `control', cluster(country)

xi:xtabond depvar indepvars endogenousvar `control' , robust lags(1) endogenous(endogenousvar)

Thanks.

[daniel klein]

There should be a line in that do-file that says

local control ...

See

help local

for more information on local macros.

By the way, you would not want to use the xi prefix in modern Stata.

Best
Daniel

[meshry ettolba]

Thanks a lot Daniel.