17.871, Political Science LabSpring 2006Take home assignment # 1: Using STATAHanded out: Feb. 16, 2004Due: Feb. 23, 2003, at the beginning of class.1. Using a text editor such as EMACS, type the text from Exhibit 1 in the document “Howto Use the STATA infile and infix Commands” into Athena and save it in a file namedscores.dat on your home directory. Write a “do” file that will create a STATA data setfrom this raw data and save it as a file called “scores.dta”. Turn in a “log” file thatdocuments the STATA commands you issued to read in the data and save it.2. The purpose of this question is for you to create two data sets and then merge themtogether using a common identifier.Find two tables that interest you in the Statistical Abstract of the United States that meetthe following criteria: (1) they have between 25 and 52 observations and (2) they havethe same units of analysis (e.g., states, years, nations), and (3) the subject matter of thetwo tables can conceivably be linked some way. (For example, you might find a datatable showing the size of the federal deficit per year and then another data table showingthe average unemployment rate per year. The link might come because some peoplethink there are bigger deficits when unemployment rates rise.)A. Call these two tables Table A and Table B. Create separate STATA data sets forthese two tables, naming the saved file tablea.dta and tableb.dta. Merge the twodata sets. Save the merged data set, calling the saved file tablesa+b.dta.B. Turn in the following:i. The “do file” that shows how you create the data sets and merged them.ii. A printout of the data.iii. A short (one paragraph, 2 or 3 sentences) description of the tables you gotyour data from and a comment about how the data might be used forresearch.3. The Election Assistance Commission conducted an “election day survey,” to document anumber of statistics concerning the conduct of the 2004 presidential election. The studymay be found at the following url: http://www.eac.gov/election_survey_2004/toc.htm. Ifyou follow the link to “State Data Tables”(http://www.eac.gov/election_survey_2004/state_data.htm), you will find individualspreadsheets for each state, with statistics about basic performance measures at thecounty (or sometimes town) level, such as the number of absentee ballots, the number ofballots, the number of registrants, etc.Here’s the assignment: For the state I assign you, create (a) an “absentee ballot” data setthat contains the number of counted absentee ballots in each county and (b) a “vap” set2that records the voting age population of each county. Save these as separate files. Writea “do file” that will merge the two files. Turn in the following:i. The “do file” that shows how you did the mergingii. A printout of the resulting merged data set.Warning: there are blanks in some of the data fields. What do you do about this?Daniel Barclay, CaliforniaTabitha Bonilla, FloridaShannon Greer, IllinoisAdam Groce, LouisianaLaura Hajj, MinnesotaJakob Hopping, NevadaDavid Nedzel, North CarolinaZachary Ozer, PennsylvaniaDavid Tobias,
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