1.2 — Meet R

ECON 480 • Econometrics • Fall 2022

Dr. Ryan Safner
Associate Professor of Economics

safner@hood.edu
ryansafner/metricsF22
metricsF22.classes.ryansafner.com

Data Science

• You go into data analysis with the tools you know, not the tools you need

• The next 2-3 weeks are all about giving you the tools you need

  • Admittedly, a bit before you know what you need them for

• We will extend them as we learn specific models

R

• Free and open source

• A very large community

  • Written by statisticians for statistics
  • Most packages are written for R first

• Can handle virtually any data format

• Makes replication easy

• Can integrate into documents (with R markdown)

• R is a language so it can do everything

  • A good stepping stone to learning other languages like Python

Excel (or Stata) Can’t Do This

• Code
• Output

ggplot(data = gapminder, 
       aes(x = gdpPercap,
           y = lifeExp,
           color = continent))+
  geom_point(alpha=0.3)+
  geom_smooth(method = "lm")+
    scale_x_log10(breaks=c(1000,10000, 100000),
                  label=scales::dollar)+
    labs(x = "GDP/Capita",
         y = "Life Expectancy (Years)")+
  facet_wrap(~continent)+
  guides(color = F)+
  theme_light()

Or This

• Input
• Output

The average GDP per capita is ` r dollar(mean(gapminder$gdpPercap)) ` with a standard deviation of ` r dollar(sd(gapminder$gdpPercap)) `.

The average GDP per capita is $7,215.33 with a standard deviation of $9,857.45.

Or This

library(leaflet)
leaflet() %>%
  addTiles() %>%
  addMarkers(lng = -77.420, lat = 39.421,
             popup = "Rosenstock Hall, Hood College")

Meet R and R Studio

R and R Studio

• R is the programming language that executes commands

• Could run this from your computer’s shell

  • On Windows: Command prompt
  • On Mac/Linux: Terminal

R and R Studio

• R Studio¹ is an integrated development environment (IDE) that makes your coding life a lot easier
  • Write code in scripts
  • Execute individual commands & scripts
  • Auto-complete, highlight syntax
  • View data, objects, and plots
  • Get help and documentation on commands and functions
  • Integrate code into documents with Quarto

1. The company R Studio recently announced they will be rebranding later this fall as Posit.

R Studio — Four Panes

Ways to Use R Studio: Using the Console

• Type individual commands into the console pane (bottom left)

• Great for testing individual commands to see what happens

• Not saved! Not reproducible! Not recommended!

Ways to Use R Studio: Writing a .R Script

• Source pane is a text-editor

• Make .R files: all input commands in a single script

• Comment with #

• Can run any or all of script at once

• Can save, reproduce, and send to others!

Ways to Use R Studio: Quarto Documents

Getting to Know Your Computer

• R assumes a default (often inconvenient) “working directory” on your computer

  • The first place it looks to open or save files

• Find out where R this is with getwd()

• Change it with setwd(path/to/folder)¹

1. Note the path is OS-specific. For Windows it might be C:/Documents/. For Mac it is often your username folder.

Avoid this Hassle with R Projects

• A R Project is a way of systematically organizing your R history, working directory, and related files in a single, self-contained directory
• Can easily be sent to others who can reproduce your work easily
• Connects well with version control software like GitHub
• Can open multiple projects in multiple windows

Avoid this Hassle with R Projects

• In almost all cases, you simply want a New Project

• For more advanced uses, your project can be an R Package or a Shiny Web Application

• If you have other packages that create templates installed (as I do, in the previous image), they will also show up as options

Avoid this Hassle with R Projects

• Enter a name for the project in the top field

  • Also creates a folder on your computer with the name you enter into the field

• Choose the location of the folder on your computer

• Depending on if you have other packages or utilities installed (such as git, see below!), there may be additional options, do not check them unless you know what you are doing

• Bottom left checkbox allows you to open a new instance (window) of R just for this project (and keep existing windows open)

An Intro to Coding

Learning…

• You don’t “learn R”, you learn how to do things in R

• In order to do learn this, you need to learn how to search for what you want to do

Learning…

My #rstats learning path:

1. Install R
2. Install RStudio
3. Google "How do I [THING I WANT TO DO] in R?"

Repeat step 3 ad infinitum.

— Jesse Mostipak (@kierisi) August 18, 2017

A surprisingly large part of having expertise in a topic is not so much knowing everything about it but learning the language and sources well enough to be extremely efficient in google searches.

— Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) December 8, 2018

…and Sucking

Say Hello To My Little Friend

Say Hello to My Better Friend

R Is Helpful Too!

• Type help(function_name) or ?(function_name) to get documentation on a function

help(mean)

?mean() # does the same thing

From Kieran Healy, Data Visualization.

I’ve Failed More Times Than You

Tips for Writing Code

• Comment, comment, comment!
• The hashtag # starts a comment, R will ignore everything on the rest of that line

• Save often!
  • Write scripts that save the commands that did what you wanted (and comment them!)
  • Better yet, use a version control system like Git (I may cover this later)

Style and Naming

• Once we start writing longer blocks of code, it helps to have a consistent (and human-readable!) style

• I follow this style guide (you are not required to)¹

• Naming objects and files will become important

  • DO NOT USE SPACES! You’ve seen seen webpages intended to be called my webpage in html turned into http://my%20webpage%20in%20html.html

i_use_underscores
some.people.use.snake.case
othersUseCamelCase

1. Consider your folders on your computer as well…

Simple Commands

• You’ll have to get used to the fact that you are coding in commands to execute

• Start with the easiest: simple math operators and calculations:

> 2+2

[1] 4

• Note that R will ask for input with > and give you output starting with [1]

Simple Commands

• We can start using more fancy commands

2^3

[1] 8

sqrt(25)

[1] 5

log(6)

[1] 1.791759

pi/2

[1] 1.570796

Packages and Libraries

• Since R is open source, users contribute packages
  • Really it’s just users writing custom functions and saving them for others to use
• Load packages with library()¹
  • e.g. library("ggplot2")
• If you don’t have a package, you must first install.packages()²
  • e.g. install.packages("ggplot2")

1. You can run a function from a previously-installed package without loading it with the syntax package_name::function_name().

2. Yes, note the plural, even if it’s just for one package

Objects & Functions

• R is an object-oriented programming language, meaning you will always be:

1. creating objects
   • assign values to an object with = (or <-)¹
2. running functions on objects
   • syntax: my_function(my_object)

# make an object
my_object = c(1,2,3,4,5)

# look at it 
my_object

[1] 1 2 3 4 5

# find the sum
sum(my_object)

[1] 15

# find the mean 
mean(my_object)

[1] 3

1. You can read this as “gets”.

More About Functions

• Functions have arguments, the input(s)

• Some functions may have multiple arguments

• The argument of a function can be another function!

# find the sd
sd(my_object)

[1] 1.581139

# round everything in my object to two decimals
round(my_object,2)

[1] 1 2 3 4 5

# round the sd to two decimals
round(sd(my_object),2)

[1] 1.58

Types of R Objects

Numeric

• numeric objects are just numbers¹

• Can be mathematically manipulated

x <- 2 
y <- 3
x+y

[1] 5

x*y

[1] 6

1. If you want to get technical, R calls these integer (for whole numbers) or double if there are decimal values.

Character

• character objects are “strings” of text contained inside quote marks

• Can contain spaces, so long as contained within quote marks

name <- "Ryan Safner"
address <- "Hood College"

name

[1] "Ryan Safner"

address

[1] "Hood College"

Logical

• logical objects are boolean/binary TRUE or FALSE indicators¹

• Used a lot to evaluate conditionals:

  • >, <: greater than, less than
  • >=, <=: greater than or equal to, less than or equal to
  • ==, !=: is equal to, is not equal to²
  • &in& : is a member of the set of \((\in)\)
  • &: “AND”
  • |: “OR”

z = 10 # set z equal to 10

z==10 # test is z equal to 10?

[1] TRUE

"red"=="blue" # test is red equal to blue?

[1] FALSE

z > 1 & z < 12 # test is z > 1 AND < 12?

[1] TRUE

z <= 1 | z==10 # test is z >= 1 OR equal to 10?

[1] TRUE

1. Technically, under the hood, R is actually storing them as numeric: 1 = TRUE, 0 = FALSE!

2. One = assigns a value (like <-), Two == evaluates a conditional statement!

Factor

• factor objects contain categorical data - membership in mutually exclusive groups

• Look like character strings, behave more like logicals, but with more than two options

 [1] senior    senior    junior    senior    senior    freshman  sophomore
 [8] junior    junior    freshman 
Levels: freshman sophomore junior senior

• We’ll make much more extensive use of them later

 [1] senior    senior    junior    senior    senior    freshman  sophomore
 [8] junior    junior    freshman 
Levels: freshman < sophomore < junior < senior

Data Structures

Vectors

• vector the simplest type of object, just a collection of elements
  • All elements must be the same data type!
• Make a vector using the combine/concatenate c() function

# create a vector named vec
vec <- c(1,"orange", 83.5, pi)

# look at vec
vec

[1] "1"                "orange"           "83.5"             "3.14159265358979"

Dataframes I

• data.frame or tibble: what we’ll always be using; think like a “spreadsheet”:
  • Each column is a vector (variable) of data all the same type
  • Each row is an observation (pair of values for all variables)

library(ggplot2)
diamonds

# A tibble: 53,940 × 10
   carat cut       color clarity depth table price     x     y     z
   <dbl> <ord>     <ord> <ord>   <dbl> <dbl> <int> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>
 1  0.23 Ideal     E     SI2      61.5    55   326  3.95  3.98  2.43
 2  0.21 Premium   E     SI1      59.8    61   326  3.89  3.84  2.31
 3  0.23 Good      E     VS1      56.9    65   327  4.05  4.07  2.31
 4  0.29 Premium   I     VS2      62.4    58   334  4.2   4.23  2.63
 5  0.31 Good      J     SI2      63.3    58   335  4.34  4.35  2.75
 6  0.24 Very Good J     VVS2     62.8    57   336  3.94  3.96  2.48
 7  0.24 Very Good I     VVS1     62.3    57   336  3.95  3.98  2.47
 8  0.26 Very Good H     SI1      61.9    55   337  4.07  4.11  2.53
 9  0.22 Fair      E     VS2      65.1    61   337  3.87  3.78  2.49
10  0.23 Very Good H     VS1      59.4    61   338  4     4.05  2.39
# … with 53,930 more rows

Dataframes II

• Dataframes are really just combinations of (column) vectors

• You can make data frames by combinining named vectors with data.frame() or creating each column/vector in each argument

# make two vectors
fruits = c("apple","orange","pear","kiwi","pineapple")
numbers = c(3.3,2.0,6.1,7.5,4.2)

# combine into dataframe
df = data.frame(fruits,numbers)

# do it all in one step (note the = instead of <-)
df = data.frame(fruits=c("apple","orange","pear","kiwi","pineapple"),
               numbers=c(3.3,2.0,6.1,7.5,4.2))

# look at it
df

     fruits numbers
1     apple     3.3
2    orange     2.0
3      pear     6.1
4      kiwi     7.5
5 pineapple     4.2

Working with Objects

Objects: Storing, Viewing, and Overwriting

• We want to store things in objects to run functions on them later
• Recall, any object is created with the assignment operator = or <-

my_vector = c(1,2,3,4,5)

• R will not give any output after an assignment

Objects: Storing, Viewing, and Overwriting

• View an object (and list its contents) by typing its name

my_vector

[1] 1 2 3 4 5

• objects maintain their values until they are assigned different values that will overwrite the object

my_vector = c(2,7,9,1,5)
my_vector

[1] 2 7 9 1 5

Objects: Checking and Changing Classes

• Check what type of object something is with class()

class("six")

[1] "character"

class(6)

[1] "numeric"

• Can also use logical tests of is.()

is.numeric("six")

[1] FALSE

is.character("six")

[1] TRUE

Objects: Checking and Changing Classes

• Convert objects from one class to another with as.object_class()
  • Pay attention: you can’t convert non-numbers to numeric, etc!

as.character(6)

[1] "6"

as.numeric("six")

[1] NA

Objects: Different Classes and Coercion I

• Different types of objects have different rules about mixing classes
• Vectors can not contain different types of data
  • Different types of data will be “coerced” into the lowest-common denominator type of object

mixed_vector = c(pi, 12, "apple", 6.32)
class(mixed_vector)

[1] "character"

mixed_vector

[1] "3.14159265358979" "12"               "apple"            "6.32"            

Objects: Different Classes and Coercion II

• Data frames can have columns with different types of data, so long as all the elements in each column are the same class¹

df

     fruits numbers
1     apple     3.3
2    orange     2.0
3      pear     6.1
4      kiwi     7.5
5 pineapple     4.2

class(df$fruits)

[1] "character"

class(df$numbers)

[1] "numeric"

1. Remember each column in a data frame is a vector!

More on Dataframes I

• Learn more about a data frame with the str() command to view its structure

class(df) 

[1] "data.frame"

str(df)

'data.frame':   5 obs. of  2 variables:
 $ fruits : chr  "apple" "orange" "pear" "kiwi" ...
 $ numbers: num  3.3 2 6.1 7.5 4.2

More on Dataframes II

• Take a look at the first 5 (or n) rows with head()

head(df)

     fruits numbers
1     apple     3.3
2    orange     2.0
3      pear     6.1
4      kiwi     7.5
5 pineapple     4.2

head(df, n=2)

  fruits numbers
1  apple     3.3
2 orange     2.0

More on Dataframes III

Get summary statistics¹ by column (variable) with summary()

summary(df)

    fruits             numbers    
 Length:5           Min.   :2.00  
 Class :character   1st Qu.:3.30  
 Mode  :character   Median :4.20  
                    Mean   :4.62  
                    3rd Qu.:6.10  
                    Max.   :7.50  

1. For numeric data only; a frequency table is displayed for character or factor data

More on Dataframes IV

• Note, once you save an object, it shows up in the Environment Pane in the upper right window
• Click the blue arrow button in front of the object for some more information

More on Dataframes V

• data.frame objects can be viewed in their own panel by clicking on the name of the object in the environment pane
• Note you cannot edit anything in this pane, it is for viewing only

Functions Again I

• Functions in R are vectorized, meaning running a function on a vector applies it to each element

my_vector = c(2,4,5,10) # create object called my_vector
my_vector # look at it

[1]  2  4  5 10

my_vector+4 # add 4 to all elements of my_vector

[1]  6  8  9 14

my_vector^2 # square all elements of my_vector

[1]   4  16  25 100

Functions Again II

• But often we want to run functions on vectors that aggregate to a result (e.g. a statistic):

length(my_vector) # how many elements?

[1] 4

sum(my_vector) # add all elements together

[1] 21

max(my_vector) # find largest element

[1] 10

min(my_vector) # find smallest element

[1] 2

mean(my_vector) # mean of all elements

[1] 5.25

median(my_vector) # median of all elements

[1] 4.5

var(my_vector) # variance of object

[1] 11.58333

sd(my_vector) # standard deviation of object

[1] 3.40343

Some Common Errors

• If you make a coding error (e.g. forget to close a parenthesis), R might show a + sign waiting for you to finish the command

> 2+(2*3
+

• Either finish the command– e.g. add )–or hit Esc to cancel