Calculate the "similscore" of two variables in the same dataset

[Nancy Embder]

Dear All,

The fuzzy match package "matchit" can create the similscore of the two matched string variables. But now I have two variables in the same dataset that I want to calculate the "similscore". Is there a function in STATA that does this? For example, I have collected firm names from two different sources and I want to confirm that it's the same firm using the two names. So I want a similarity measure between the two firm names. Thank you!

[Andrew Musau]

matchit is from SSC (FAQ Advice #12). Also see https://www.statalist.org/forums/help#spelling on spelling Stata. You likely need to separate the variables into two datasets and form pairwise combinations of the datasets if the strings are not paired. Something similar at: https://www.statalist.org/forums/for...-same-variable. If you cannot make sense of the example in the linked thread, provide a data example for any code suggestions. You may, e.g., copy and paste the output of

dataex var1 var2

where you replace "var1" and "var2" with the names of your variables.

[Nancy Embder]

matchit is from SSC (FAQ Advice #12). Also see https://www.statalist.org/forums/help#spelling on spelling Stata. You likely need to separate the variables into two datasets and form pairwise combinations of the datasets if the strings are not paired. Something similar at: https://www.statalist.org/forums/for...-same-variable. If you cannot make sense of the example in the linked thread, provide a data example for any code suggestions. You may, e.g., copy and paste the output of

dataex var1 var2

where you replace "var1" and "var2" with the names of your variables.

Thank you Andrew! Apologizing on the spelling of Stata. My data looks like the following:

Name1 Name2
AAP Corp, AAP Corporation
AAP Corp, ABP Corp
Univ Inc., AAP Corp
Univ Inc., Universe Inc.

I want to calculate a similarity score between the two variables Name1 and Name2. Thanks!

[Andrew Musau]

If the entries are paired, isn't it simply

matchit Name1 Name2

?

[Nancy Embder]

If the entries are paired, isn't it simply

matchit Name1 Name2

?

Yes! That totally worked, thank you! I didn't know that I can use matchit to calculate similscore directly, I thought it was only used for fuzzy matching two datasets. Thanks again!