Data Resources for Economic Development in the Middle East and North Africa

This page is a collection of links for help with using R, SAS, SPSS, and Stata. The guides are very "from-the-ground-up" and cover multiple topics, from the basics of getting data into the program to various common data-management tasks to introductory data analysis.

These guides generally focus on using syntax to work with and analyze data in statistical software. While there are learning curves of varying degrees of steepness with each of these applications, a syntax-based approach to working with data is a more robust and reproducible means of doing empirical analysis and is the flip side of proper citation with regard to the coin of transparency in quantitative research. Simply put, syntax is documentation that spells out what you did to process and analyze the data and produce your findings, and access to that syntax thus shows others how you got your results. Some journals such as the American Economic Review and the American Journal of Political Science even require submission of syntax for cleaning and analyzing data as part of their submission policies on data availability.

For additional guidance on working with data, see the following:

• "Data Organization in Spreadsheets" - Excellent guidance and suggestions for how to format spreadsheets for data analysis.
• "Stata for Researchers: Project Management" - Written for Stata users, but applicable more generally.
• The Teaching Integrity in Empirical Research Project's recommended specifications and processes for working with data.
• "Tidy Data" - Written for R users, but applicable more generally.

R Resources:

"Articles on Statistical Computing - R" from the Social Science Computing Cooperative, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

"Cookbook for R," by Winston Chang

"Data Transformation with dplyr:: Cheat Sheet"

"Getting Started in Data Analysis Using Stata and R," by Oscar Torres-Reyna, Princeton University

"Quick-R - 'Accessing the Power of R'"

"R for Data Science," by Garrett Grolemund and Hadley Wickham

"R - "Quick List of Useful R Packages"

"RStudio Cheat Sheets"

"R for SAS and SPSS Users," by Robert A. Muenchen, the University of Tennessee

"R for Stata Users," by Matthieu Gomez , Princeton University

"R Markdown Cookbook," by Yihui Xie, Christopher Dervieux, and Emily Riderer

"Resources to Help You Learn and Use R," from UCLA's Academic Technology Services

"Tidyverse - R Packages for Data Science," by Hadley Wickham

"Using R and RStudio for Data Management, Statistical Analysis, and Graphics" (Second Edition) (.pdf)

"Using R to Analyse Key UK Surveys," from the UK Data Service (.pdf)

SAS Resources:

"Articles on Statistical Computing - SAS Basics and SAS Topics" from the Social Science Computing Cooperative, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

"Documentation for SAS Products and Solutions," from the SAS Institute

"Frequently-Asked Questions about SAS," from the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas-Austin (via the Internet Archive)

"Introduction to SAS Version 8.2," from the University of Virginia's ITC Division (via the Internet Archive)

"Knowledge Base / Samples and SAS Notes," from the SAS Institute

"Main Continuous and Historical NHANES Tutorials," from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - This collection focuses on NHANES data, but the tutorials have useful guidance for analysis of survey data more generally.

"Resources to Help You Learn and Use SAS," from UCLA's Academic Technology Services

"SAS Analyst for MS Windows," from the Division of Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas-Austin (.pdf)

"SAS Classes and Seminars," from UCLA's Academic Technology Services

"SAS I: Getting Started," from the Division of Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas-Austin (.pdf)

"SAS II: Inferential Statistics," from the Division of Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas-Austin (.pdf)

"SAS Conference Proceedings (1976-Present)" - For searching for papers and proceedings from SAS user conferences.

"Topics in SAS Programming," from UNC's Carolina Population Center

SPSS Resources:

"Articles on Statistical Computing - SPSS" from the Social Science Computing Cooperative, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

"Frequently-Asked Questions about SPSS," from the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas-Austin (via the Internet Archive)

"Resources to Help You Learn and Use SPSS," from UCLA's Academic Technology Services

"SPSS Classes and Seminars," from UCLA's Academic Technology Services

"SPSS for Windows: Getting Started," from the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas-Austin (.pdf)

"SPSS for Windows: Descriptive and Inferential Statistics," from the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas-Austin (.pdf)

"SPSS for Windows: Displaying Data," from the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas-Austin (.pdf)

"SPSS for Windows: Data Manipulation and Advanced Topics," from the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas-Austin (.pdf)

"SPSS for Windows I," from the Centre for Applied Statistics at Lancaster University (via the Internet Archive)

"SPSS for Windows II," from the Centre for Applied Statistics at Lancaster University (via the Internet Archive)

"SPSS Tutorials," from Ruben Geert Van Den Berg in the Netherlands

"What Is SPSS 20 For Windows?" from the UK Data Service (.pdf)

Stata Resources:

"A Little Bit of Stata Programming Goes A Long Way," from Christopher Baum at Boston College (.pdf)

"Articles on Statistical Computing - Stata Basics and Stata Topics" from the Social Science Computing Cooperative, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

"Getting Started in Data Analysis Using Stata and R," by Oscar Torres-Reyna, Princeton University

"Introduction to Stata," by Germán Rodríguez, Princeton University

"Frequently Asked Questions," from the Stata Corporation

"Main Continuous and Historical NHANES Tutorials," from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - This collection focuses on NHANES data, but the tutorials have useful guidance for analysis of survey data more generally.

"Resources for Learning Stata," from the Stata Corporation

"Resources to Help you Learn and Use Stata," from UCLA's Academic Technology Services

"A SAS User's Guide to Stata," from the UNC Carolina Population Center

"The Stata Blog"

"The Stata Guide on Medium," from Asjad Naqvi

"Stata Classes and Seminars," from UCLA's Academic Technology Services

"Stata Cheat Sheets," from the "Fundamentals of Data Analysis and Visualization" Project

"Stata Cheat Sheets," from the Stata Corporation

"A Stata Tutorial," from the UNC Carolina Population Center

"What Is Stata?" from the UK Data Service (.pdf)