Calculating Board Interlocks

[Lukas Hoefner]

Hi there,

i'm trying to create the variable "Board interlocks" in STATA for my panel data. I collected data for all listed firms in the HDAX from 2004 - 2016 including all members of the boards of directors for each firm year.

First, I'd like to calculate the amount of interlocks for the focal firm per person per year, i.e. a member of the board of directors sitting on other boards in the same year and sum up the R&D spendings of the associated firms.
Second, I'd like to distinguish between 3 types of interlocks:

1) all ties an executive has to other firms where he serves as a non-executive,
2) all ties the non-executives have to other firms where they serve as executives and
3) all ties the non-executives have to other firms where they serve as non-executives.

and sum up the respective R&D expenditures of the associated firms.

Thats how my data looks like:



Does anyone have experience with this type of variable or have any helpful advise? I'm new to STATA, so any help would be appreciated!

[Mike Lacy]

I think this is an interesting question, but most of us here are not willing to deal with image-based postings of data, so your having presented such reduces your chance of a useful response. I'd encourage you to take another look at the StataList FAQ for new users, where I believe sections 12.2 and 12.5 will be particularly helpful. Also, if/when you present a new data example using -dataex-, per the FAQ, you'll want to strip down your data example to its essentials, that is, to include only the variables relevant to the current problem.

Given that your question falls squarely within the area of social network analysis, solving it may turn out to be easier using standard tools from that analytic tradition. There is a sophisticated user-written module of SNA procedures for Stata named -nwcommands-. To learn about it, take a look at https://nwcommands.wordpress.com/