Verification

Note

• Link to JIRA: https://aeadataeditors.atlassian.net/jira (requires login).

• Computer access: Access computers appendix.

In this stage, you are verifying the code, by using the provided data, or by inspecting the completeness of the source code. The REPLICATION.md is the report!

Principles

Keep a log of what you do, what you find, and what does not work, in the REPLICATION.md, under Findings.

You should also run code so that it generates an actual “log file”. How to do this depends on the software:

• For codes using STATA, we provide a template of config.do in the repository. It creates log files and saves it in the repository. Instructions for using config.do is in Using config.do in the Appendix.

• For R, you should run using one of the variants of R CMD BATCH program.R, see R tips

• For MATLAB, you should run using the command line version, generically matlab -nodisplay -r "addpath(genpath('.')); main" -logfile matlab.log, see MATLAB tips

• Variants of these methods will also work for Julia and Ox.

• If the software you need to run does not provide console/terminal output, talk to us!

Details

CCSS

• If using Stata, see Stata related procedures.

• If using Matlab, open up Matlab. This might take a while.

• If using Python, we suggest in general to use git bash, but you may also be able to use the Python shell. Consult with your supervisor, or the CCSS helpdesk.

Consult the Replication Wiki for some help in debugging:

• Stata tips

• Matlab tips

• Python tips

• R tips

Github Codespaces (CS)

• If using Stata, see Stata related procedures for how to prepare files. However, you will use the command-line to run Stata.

  • To run Stata, type stata-mp -b do main.do (adjust to account for whatever the program or programs are called). You can do this for every one of the programs.

• To run R, type Rscript program.R or R CMD BATCH program.R (which will always create a log file)

• To run Python code, type python3 program.py or whatever the authors specify.

• If you need other versions of Stata, R, Python, etc. (e.g. Stata 16), you may need to choose a different CS environment that allows to run Docker. See Docker tips

Do not forget to add files output by the code to the repository (log files, figures – eps, png, pdf – and tables – tex, txt, xlsx, xls). Typically (but not always), you can type git add * to add any allowable files, but careful with large data files, and sometimes code will output .txt files, which you have to force-add: git add -f name.txt.

You should commit your report with intermediate results as you have them. Do not wait until you have all the results finished. Commit frequently!

Add (report, modified files)! Commit! Push!

You can now proceed to change the status to Writing Report.