1. American Housing Survey Introduction to the Data

2. AHS Census data Data Description is in the Folders http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/ahs.html Survey information available from 1974 through 1999 –micro sample available for 1997 and 1999 through FERRET

3. AHS Total Inventory and Vacant Units –Central cities –Suburbs –Outside MSAs

4. AHS Variables –Introductory Characteristics –Height and Condition of Building –Size of Unit and Lot –Selected Equipment and Plumbing –Fuels –Housing and Neighborhood Quality –Financial Characteristics

5. AHS weighted to account for sampling and other errors 58,400 interviews

6. Getting Person Data Administrative Data Characteristics of the Occupants Income Data Respondent’s Opinion of the Neighborhood and Unit

7. Getting Person Data See handout for individual variables to select Save codebook Save format

8. Getting Person Data Use winzip to open the zipped data file load it into Excel –separate the columns Save as a text file close Excel

9. Get Person Data Open Stata set mem set matsize insheet using “c:\your file name”

10. Examine the Data Describe command Non-numeric Variables Missing Values Codebook: –http://research.umbc.edu/~coates/ec611/coatesq 10928customcodebk_person.htm

11. Recoding Variables Strings –litter takes values of B or missing –gen trash=0 –replace trash=1 if litter==“B” Categorical –Race: 5 races plus 4 other categories –gen black=0 –replace black=1 if race==2

12. Recoding Variables Span: hispanic if 1, other is 2, and 4 other categories gen hisp=0 replace hisp=1 if span==1

13. Variable labels Want to always be sure what the variables measure, units, etc. Label var varname “description” –label var black “1 if race is listed as black, o otherwise” –label var trash “1 if litter in neighborhood, 0 otherwise”