Import Stata ‘webuse’ Datasets

This package provides a Stata-style webuse() function for importing named datasets from Stata’s online collection.

Package Installation

This package can be installed from R using install.packages("webuse") or from GitHub using remotes:

if(!require("remotes")){
    install.packages("remotes")
}
remotes::install_github("leeper/webuse")

Code Examples

Functionality is simple. Load webuse and then access any online Stata dataset using the webuse() function. This will assign the named dataset from Stata 15 to the .GlobalEnv:

library("webuse")
webuse("auto")
head(auto)

As an option, you can specify the Stata version of the dataset and the environment via version and envir parameters:

library("webuse")
webuse("auto", version = 15, envir = parent.frame())
head(auto)

## # A tibble: 6 x 12
##   make        price   mpg rep78 headroom trunk weight length  turn displacement gear_ratio foreign 
##   <chr>       <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>    <dbl> <dbl>  <dbl>  <dbl> <dbl>        <dbl>      <dbl> <dbl+lb>
## 1 AMC Concord 4099.   22.    3.     2.50   11.  2930.   186.   40.         121.       3.58 0       
## 2 AMC Pacer   4749.   17.    3.     3.00   11.  3350.   173.   40.         258.       2.53 0       
## 3 AMC Spirit  3799.   22.   NA      3.00   12.  2640.   168.   35.         121.       3.08 0       
## 4 Buick Cent~ 4816.   20.    3.     4.50   16.  3250.   196.   40.         196.       2.93 0       
## 5 Buick Elec~ 7827.   15.    4.     4.00   20.  4080.   222.   43.         350.       2.41 0       
## 6 Buick LeSa~ 5788.   18.    3.     4.00   21.  3670.   218.   43.         231.       2.73 0

webuse("uslifeexp")
head(uslifeexp)

## # A tibble: 6 x 10
##    year    le le_male le_female  le_w le_wmale le_wfemale  le_b le_bmale le_bfemale
##   <dbl> <dbl>   <dbl>     <dbl> <dbl>    <dbl>      <dbl> <dbl>    <dbl>      <dbl>
## 1 1900.  47.3    46.3      48.3  47.6     46.6       48.7  33.0     32.5       33.5
## 2 1901.  49.1    47.6      50.6  49.4     48.0       51.0  33.7     32.2       35.3
## 3 1902.  51.5    49.8      53.4  51.9     50.2       53.8  34.6     32.9       36.4
## 4 1903.  50.5    49.1      52.0  50.9     49.5       52.5  33.1     31.7       34.6
## 5 1904.  47.6    46.2      49.1  48.0     46.6       49.5  30.8     29.1       32.7
## 6 1905.  48.7    47.3      50.2  49.1     47.6       50.6  31.3     29.6       33.1

The webuselist object contains a list of “core” Stata datasets:

str(webuselist)

## List of 26
##  $ auto      : chr "1978 Automobile Data"
##  $ auto2     : chr "1978 Automobile Data"
##  $ autornd   : chr "Subset of 1978 Automobile Data"
##  $ bplong    : chr "fictional blood pressure data"
##  $ bpwide    : chr "fictional blood pressure data"
##  $ cancer    : chr "Patient Survival in Drug Trial"
##  $ census    : chr "1980 Census data by state"
##  $ citytemp  : chr "City Temperature Data"
##  $ citytemp4 : chr "City Temperature Data"
##  $ educ99gdp : chr "Education and GDP"
##  $ gnp96     : chr "U.S. GNP, 1967-2002"
##  $ lifeexp   : chr "Life expectancy, 1998"
##  $ network1  : chr "fictional network diagram data"
##  $ network1a : chr "fictional network diagram data"
##  $ nlsw88    : chr "U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Young Women (NLSW, 1988 extract)"
##  $ nlswide1  : chr "U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Young Women (NLSW, 1988 extract)"
##  $ pop2000   : chr "U.S. Census, 2000, extract"
##  $ sandstone : chr "Subsea elevation of Lamont sandstone in an area of Ohio"
##  $ sp500     : chr "S&P 500"
##  $ surface   : chr "NOAA Sea Surface Temperature"
##  $ tsline1   : chr "simulated time-series data"
##  $ tsline2   : chr "fictional data on calories consumed"
##  $ uslifeexp : chr "U.S. life expectancy, 1900-1999"
##  $ uslifeexp2: chr "U.S. life expectancy, 1900-1940"
##  $ voter     : chr "1992 presidential voter data"
##  $ xtline1   : chr "fictional data on calories consumed"