4 ms·

As someone who started to study economics and switched into computer science, can anyone explain why Stata is used for most economics work when Python/Julia/R s

As someone who started to study economics and switched into computer science, can anyone explain why Stata is used for most economics work when Python/Julia/R seem like such better options and are free?

Gimpei 2y ago
Inertia. Stata was a good and relatively easy option in the eighties when the credibility revolution kicked off. Now it takes too much effort to switch over to R. At least that’s way current tenured professors believe and good luck convincing them otherwise.
bachmeier 2y ago
> can anyone explain why Stata is used for most economics work Your question implies a limited view of the field of economics. Stata is the dominant piece of software in fields like labor economics. That's because the people working in those areas want to enter a few commands or click a few menu options and let Stata do its thing. It's hard to beat for that type of analysis. Just make sure you don't want to do any actual programming. Macro theory traditionally used Matlab and Fortran. Time series long ago used GAUSS, RATS, and EViews, among others, but never Stata. R and Python are used a lot today. Then there are others like SAS and LIMDEP that are no longer used as much, but have their niches.
sumanthvepa 2y ago
My mom is a developmental economist. She exclusively uses Stata, inspite of a decade of efforts on my part to introduce her to R and R studio. My conclusion is that she views the tools as equivalent, and merely incidental to her work, and doesn't want to go to the effort of learning a new tool, that gives her no meaningful benefit.
AngelPanaranda 2y ago
I much prefer R and Julia, but there are algorithms in Stata that don't exist anywhere else. And so, for some jobs, Stata it must be. If you are wondering, for us it was standard errors for clustered panel models.

4 ms·

As someone who started to study economics and switched into computer science, can anyone explain why Stata is used for most economics work when Python/Julia/R s

by mr_00ff00 2y ago

Gimpei 2y ago
Inertia. Stata was a good and relatively easy option in the eighties when the credibility revolution kicked off. Now it takes too much effort to switch over to R. At least that’s way current tenured professors believe and good luck convincing them otherwise.
bachmeier 2y ago
> can anyone explain why Stata is used for most economics work Your question implies a limited view of the field of economics. Stata is the dominant piece of software in fields like labor economics. That's because the people working in those areas want to enter a few commands or click a few menu options and let Stata do its thing. It's hard to beat for that type of analysis. Just make sure you don't want to do any actual programming. Macro theory traditionally used Matlab and Fortran. Time series long ago used GAUSS, RATS, and EViews, among others, but never Stata. R and Python are used a lot today. Then there are others like SAS and LIMDEP that are no longer used as much, but have their niches.
sumanthvepa 2y ago
My mom is a developmental economist. She exclusively uses Stata, inspite of a decade of efforts on my part to introduce her to R and R studio. My conclusion is that she views the tools as equivalent, and merely incidental to her work, and doesn't want to go to the effort of learning a new tool, that gives her no meaningful benefit.
AngelPanaranda 2y ago
I much prefer R and Julia, but there are algorithms in Stata that don't exist anywhere else. And so, for some jobs, Stata it must be. If you are wondering, for us it was standard errors for clustered panel models.