23 Apr
2008
23 Apr
'08
3:03 a.m.
Hi everyone,
Quick question: I downloaded continuous data from the Penn World Tables, but
R treats the observations as "factorized" or categorical within a variable.
Consequently, I'm not able to include the variables in regressions; R
essentially treats each observation within these variables as dummies. I've
attempted to correct the problem with as.numeric, as.data.frame, and
as.matrix commands, but have not been successful.
Any thoughts? Thanks in advance,
Brett
23 Apr
23 Apr
3:08 a.m.
What kind of data file are you working with, and what function are you
using to import the data?
If you're using a function like read.table or read.csv, make sure to
set the argument "stringsAsFactors = FALSE".
Sean
On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 3:03 AM, Brett Logan Carter
<blcarter at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
Hi everyone,
Quick question: I downloaded continuous data from the Penn World Tables, but
R treats the observations as "factorized" or categorical within a variable.
Consequently, I'm not able to include the variables in regressions; R
essentially treats each observation within these variables as dummies. I've
attempted to correct the problem with as.numeric, as.data.frame, and
as.matrix commands, but have not been successful.
Any thoughts? Thanks in advance,
Brett
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gov2001-l at lists.fas.harvard.edu
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7:12 a.m.
Or use stat-transfer to first transform the data properly. It's on all the
lab computers I think.
-----Original Message-----
From: gov2001-l-bounces at lists.fas.harvard.edu [mailto:gov2001-l-
bounces at lists.fas.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Sean Li
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 3:08 AM
To: gov2001-l at lists.fas.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: [gov2001-l] "de-factorizing" data from Penn World Tables
What kind of data file are you working with, and what function are you
using to import the data?
If you're using a function like read.table or read.csv, make sure to
set the argument "stringsAsFactors = FALSE".
Sean
On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 3:03 AM, Brett Logan Carter
<blcarter at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
Hi everyone,
Quick question: I downloaded continuous data from the Penn World
Tables, but
R treats the observations as
"factorized" or categorical within a
variable.
Consequently, I'm not able to include the
variables in regressions; R
essentially treats each observation within these variables as
dummies. I've
attempted to correct the problem with as.numeric,
as.data.frame, and
as.matrix commands, but have not been successful.
Any thoughts? Thanks in advance,
Brett
_______________________________________________
gov2001-l mailing list
gov2001-l at lists.fas.harvard.edu
http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/gov2001-l
_______________________________________________
gov2001-l mailing list
gov2001-l at lists.fas.harvard.edu
http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/gov2001-l 
8:04 a.m.
Brett,
I had the same issue. For some reason, the tables do not download as
numbers or even characters. So I used R to force the data to be a character
then transformed it into numeric. As per my norm, I took the direct (read
unelegant) approach. (I had 48 time points for each country in a table
called "pop").
for(i in 1:48){
pop[,i] <- as.numeric(as.character(pop[,i]))
}
All is swell now.
Joe
From: gov2001-l-bounces at lists.fas.harvard.edu
[mailto:gov2001-l-bounces at lists.fas.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Brett Logan
Carter
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 3:04 AM
To: gov2001-l at lists.fas.harvard.edu
Subject: [gov2001-l] "de-factorizing" data from Penn World Tables
Hi everyone,
Quick question: I downloaded continuous data from the Penn World Tables, but
R treats the observations as "factorized" or categorical within a variable.
Consequently, I'm not able to include the variables in regressions; R
essentially treats each observation within these variables as dummies. I've
attempted to correct the problem with as.numeric, as.data.frame, and
as.matrix commands, but have not been successful.
Any thoughts? Thanks in advance,
Brett
10:14 a.m.
Not sure if this is helpful, but I think some of the read.xxx commands have
an option called "stringAsFactor = FALSE" that may be helpful.
Benny
On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 8:04 AM, Joseph Williams <william5 at fas.harvard.edu>
wrote:
Brett,
I had the same issue. For some reason, the tables do not download as
numbers or even characters. So I used R to force the data to be a character
then transformed it into numeric. As per my norm, I took the direct (read
unelegant) approach. (I had 48 time points for each country in a table
called "pop").
for(i in 1:48){
pop[,i] <- as.numeric(as.character(pop[,i]))
}
All is swell now.
Joe
*From:* gov2001-l-bounces at lists.fas.harvard.edu [mailto:
gov2001-l-bounces at lists.fas.harvard.edu] *On Behalf Of *Brett Logan Carter
*Sent:* Wednesday, April 23, 2008 3:04 AM
*To:* gov2001-l at lists.fas.harvard.edu
*Subject:* [gov2001-l] "de-factorizing" data from Penn World Tables
Hi everyone,
Quick question: I downloaded continuous data from the Penn World Tables,
but R treats the observations as "factorized" or categorical within a
variable. Consequently, I'm not able to include the variables in
regressions; R essentially treats each observation within these variables as
dummies. I've attempted to correct the problem with as.numeric,
as.data.frame, and as.matrix commands, but have not been successful.
Any thoughts? Thanks in advance,
Brett
_______________________________________________
gov2001-l mailing list
gov2001-l at lists.fas.harvard.edu
http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/gov2001-l
5869
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days old
gov2001@lists.gking.harvard.edu
4 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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blcarter＠fas.harvard.edu -
jhainmueller＠gmail.com -
seanli＠fas.harvard.edu -
william5＠fas.harvard.edu -
yinanzhu＠fas.harvard.edu