ietoolkit - Stata Commands for Impact Evaluations

Install and Update

Installing published versions of ietoolkit

To install ietoolkit, type ssc install ietoolkit in Stata. This will install the latest published version of ietoolkit. The main version of the code in the repo (the master branch) is what is published on SSC as well.

If you think something is different in version in this repo, and the version installed on your computer, make sure that you both look at the master branch in this repo, and that you have the most recent version of ietoolkit installed. To update all files associated with ietoolkit type adoupdate ietoolkit, update in Stata. (It is wise to be in the habit of regularly checking if any of your .ado files installed in Stata need updates by typing adoupdate.)

When we are publishing new versions of ietoolkit then there could be a discrepancy between the master branch and the version on SSC as the master branch is updates a couple of days before. You can confirm if that could be the case by checking if we recently published a new release.

Installing unpublished branches of this repository

Follow the instructions above if you want the most recent published version of ietoolkit. If you want a yet to be published version of ietoolkit then you can use the code below. The code below installs the version currently in the master branch, but replace master in the URL below with the name of the branch you want to install from. You can also install older version of ietoolkit like this but it will only go back to January 2019 when we set up this method of installing the package.

    net install ietoolkit , from("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/worldbank/ietoolkit/master/src") replace

Requirements

Stata version 11 or later is required for this package of commands.

Background

These commands are developed by people that work at or with the Development Impact Evaluations (DIME) unit at the World Bank. While the commands are developed with best practices for impact evaluations in mind, these commands can be useful outside that field as well.

Bug Reports and Feature Requests

If you are familiar with GitHub go to the Contributions section below for advanced instructions.

An easy but still very efficient way to provide any feedback on these commands is to create an issue in GitHub. You can read issues submitted by other users or create a new issue in the top menu below worldbank/ietoolkit at https://github.com/worldbank/ietoolkit. While the word issue has a negative connotation outside GitHub, it can be used for any kind of feedback. If you have an idea for a new command, or a new feature on an existing command, creating an issue is a great tool for suggesting that. Please read already existing issues to check whether someone else has made the same suggestion or reported the same error before creating a new issue.

While we have a slight preference for receiving feedback here on GitHub, you are still very welcome to send a regular email with your feedback to [email protected].

Content

ietoolkit provides a set of commands that address different aspects of data management and data analysis in relation to Impact Evaluations. The list of commands will be extended continuously, and suggestions for new commands are greatly appreciated. Some of the commands are related to standardized best practices developed at DIME (The World Bank’s unit for Impact Evaluations). For these commands, the corresponding help files provide justifications for the standardized best practices applied.

• ietoolkit returns meta info on the version of ietoolkit installed. Can be used to ensure that the team uses the same version.
• iebaltab is a tool for multiple treatment arm balance tables
• ieddtab is a tool for difference-in-difference regression tables
• ieboilstart standardizes the boilerplate code at the top of all do-files
• iefolder sets up project folders and master do-files according to DIME's recommended folder structure
• iegitaddmd adds placeholder README.md files to all empty subfolders allowing them to be synced on GitHub
• iematch is an algorithm for matching observations in one group to the "most similar" observations in another group
• iegraph produces graphs of estimation results in common impact evaluation regression models
• iedropone drops observations and controls that the correct number was dropped
• ieboilsave performs checks before saving a data set

Contributions

If you are not familiar with GitHub see the Bug reports and feature requests section above for a less technical but still very helpful way to contribute to ietoolkit.

GitHub is a wonderful tool for collaboration on code. We appreciate contributions directly to the code and will of course give credit to anyone providing contributions that we merge to the master branch. If you have any questions on anything in this section, please do not hesitate to email [email protected]. See CONTRIBUTING.md for some more details on for example naming conventions.

The Stata files on the master branch are the files most recently released on the SSC server. README, LICENSE and similar files are updated directly to master in between releases. Check out any of the develop branches (if there are any) if you want to see what future updates we are currently working on.

Please make pull requests to the master branch only if you wish to contribute to README, LICENSE or similar meta data files. If you wish to make a contribution to any Stata file, then please do not use the master branch. If you wish to make a contribution to any Stata files that we have published at least once, then please fork from and make your pull request to the develop branch. The develop branch includes all minor edits we have made to already published commands since the last release that we will include in the next version released on the SSC server. If your addition is related to a specific issue in this repository, then see the naming convention in the CONTRIBUTING.md file.

All Stata commands we are working on that we have yet to release a first version of, are found in the branches called develop-NAME where NAME corresponds to the working name of the command that is yet to be published. If you wish to contribute to any of those commands, then please fork from the branch of the command you want to contribute to, and only make edits to the .ado/.do and .sthlp that correspond to that command. If you want to make contributions to multiple commands that have yet to be released, then you will have to fork from and make pull request to multiple branches.

If you wish to make a contribution by making forks and pull requests but are not exactly sure how to do so, feel free to send an email to [email protected].

License

ietoolkit is developed under MIT license. See http://adampritchard.mit-license.org/ or see the LICENSE file for details.

Main Contact

Luiza Cardoso de Andrade ([email protected])

Authors

Kristoffer Bjärkefur, Luiza Cardoso de Andrade, Benjamin Daniels, Mrijan Rimal

About us

DIME is the World Bank's impact evaluation department. Part of DIME’s mission is to intensify the production of and access to public goods that improve the quantity and quality of global development research, while lowering the costs of doing IE for the entire research community. This Library is developed and maintained by DIME Analytics. DIME Analytics supports quality research processes across the DIME portfolio, offers public trainings, and develops tools for the global community of development researchers.

Other DIME Analytics public goods are:

• Development Research in Practice: the DIME Analytics Data Handbook
• DIME Wiki: a one-stop-shop for impact evaluation resources
• iefieldkit: Stata package for primary data collection
• Stata Visual Library
• R Econ Visual Library
• DIME Research Standards: DIME's commitments to best practices