Create Binary Variable

[Marah Schmidt]

Hello,

I have a variable A (=dependent variable) that is encoded 1 to 4, it was measured in 3 consecutive years (2000, 2001, 2002). In 2001, there was an event, and I want to see the effect of this event on A.
So, I want to create a binary variable (= independent variable = event) where I can see the development of A over time and the effect the binary had on A.
The binary should be coded 0 (for the year 2000) and 1 (for the year 2002).

For some reason, I cannot create a binary variable that does that.

I hope you understand what my problem is. :/ I'm (obviously) very new to Stata and super inexperienced.


Every help is much appreciated, thank you very much!

[Rich Goldstein]

what do you want the code to be for the year 2001? I see 3 possibilities here: 0, 1, .(missing)

[Marah Schmidt]

I don't know what I have to do here, to be honest. It probably should be a missing? Because if 2001 is either 0 or 1, I won't be able to compare only 2000 and 2002.

[Rich Goldstein]

here is one way (there are many):

gen byte wanted=1 if year==2002
replace wanted=0 if year==2000

note that since there was no data example provided (please read the FAQ), I have made assumptions here including that year is numeric; you should change "wanted" to whatever variable name you actually want here