---
title: 'Methods Camp - Tidy data analysis II'
date: 'August 2026'
editor: visual
---

# Tidy data analysis II

In this session, we'll cover a few more advanced topics related to data wrangling. Again we'll use the `tidyverse`:

```{r}
library(tidyverse)
```

## Loading data in different formats.

In this module we will use cross-national data from the [Quality of Government (QoG) project](https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government/qog-data/data-downloads/basic-dataset) ([Dahlberg et al., 2023](https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government%20doi:10.18157/qogbasjan23)).

Notice how in the `data/` folder we have multiple versions of the same dataset (a subset of the QOG basic dataset): .csv (comma-separated values), .rds (R), .xlsx (Excel), .dta (Stata), and .sav (SPSS).

### CSV and R data files

We can use the `read_csv()` and `read_rds()` functions from the `tidyverse`[^1] to read the .csv and .rds (R) data files:

[^1]: Technically, the `read_csv()` and `read_rds()` functions come from `readr`, one of the `tidyverse` constituent packages.

```{r}
qog_csv <- read_csv("data/sample_qog_bas_ts_jan23.csv")

qog_csv2 <- read.csv("./data/sample_qog_bas_ts_jan23.csv")
```

```{r}
qog_rds <- read_rds("data/sample_qog_bas_ts_jan23.rds")
```

For reading files from other software (Excel, Stata, or SPSS), we need to load additional packages. Luckily, they are automatically installed when one installs the `tidyverse`.

### Excel data files

For Excel files (.xls or .xlsx files), the `readxl` package has a handy `read_excel()` function.

```{r}
library(readxl)
qog_excel <- read_excel("data/sample_qog_bas_ts_jan23.xlsx")
```

::: callout-tip
Useful arguments of the `read_excel()` function include `sheet =`, which reads particular sheets (specified via their positions or sheet names), and `range =`, which extracts a particular cell range (e.g., \`A5:E25\`).
:::

### Stata and SPSS data files

To load files from Stata (.dta) or SPSS (.spss), one needs the `haven` package and its properly-named `read_stata()` and `read_spss()` functions:

```{r}
library(haven)
qog_stata <- read_stata("data/sample_qog_bas_ts_jan23.dta")
qog_spss <- read_spss("data/sample_qog_bas_ts_jan23.sav")
```

::: callout-tip
Datasets from Stata and SPSS can have additional properties, like variable labels and special types of missing values. To learn more about this, check out the ["Labelled data" chapter](https://socialresearchcentre.github.io/r_survey_datasets/labelled-data.html) from Danny Smith's *Survey Research Datasets and R* [(2020)](https://socialresearchcentre.github.io/r_survey_datasets/).
:::

### Our data for this session

We will rename one of our objects to `qog`:

```{r}
qog <- qog_csv
qog

summary(qog)


```

This dataset is a small sample of QOG, which contains data for countries in the Americas from 1990 to 2020. The observational unit is thus country-year. You can access the [full codebook](https://www.qogdata.pol.gu.se/data/codebook_bas_jan23.pdf) online. The variables are as follows:

| Variable | Description |
|----|----|
| `cname` | Country name |
| `ccodealp` | Country code (ISO-3 character convention) |
| `year` | Year |
| `region` | Region (following legacy WDI convention). Added to QOG by us. |
| `wdi_pop` | Total population, from the World Development Indicators |
| `vdem_polyarchy` | V-Dem's polyarchy index (electoral democracy) |
| `vdem_corr` | V-Dem's corruption index |
| `ht_colonial` | Former colonial ruler |

## Recoding variables

Take a look at the `ht_colonial` variable. We can do a simple tabulation with `count()`:

```{r}
qog |> 
  count(ht_colonial)

table(qog$ht_colonial)
```

::: callout-tip
Another common way to compute quick tabulations in R is with the `table()` function. Be aware that this takes a *vector* as the input:

```{r}
table(qog$ht_colonial)
```
:::

We might want to recode this variable. For instance, we could create a *dummy*/*binary/indicator* variable for whether the country was a British colony. We can do this with `if_else()`, which works with logical conditions:

```{r}
qog_main_v3 <- qog |> 
  # the arguments are condition, true (what to do if true), false
  mutate(d_britishcol = if_else(ht_colonial == "British", 1, 0),
         cat_britishcol = if_else(ht_colonial == "British", "British", "Other")) 
```

Instead of a numeric classification (0 and 1), we could use characters:

```{r}
qog_main <- qog_main |> 
  mutate(cat_britishcol = 
           if_else(ht_colonial == "British", "British", "Other")) 
```

`if_else()` is great for binary recoding. But sometimes we want to create more than two categories. We can use `case_when()`:

```{r}
qog |> 
  # syntax is condition ~ value
  mutate(cat_col = case_when(
    ht_colonial == "British" ~ "British",
    ht_colonial == "Spanish" ~ "Spanish", 
    .default = "Other" # what to do in all other cases
  )) |> 
  count(cat_col)


qog |>
  mutate(vdem_multi = case_when(
    vdem_polyarchy < 0.4 ~ "Autocracy",
    vdem_polyarchy > 0.4 ~ "Democracy",
    .default = "Unknown"
  ))
```

The `.default =` argument in `case_when()` can also be used to leave the variable as-is for non-specified cases. For example, let's combine Portuguese and Spanish colonies:

```{r}
qog |> 
  # syntax is condition ~ value
  mutate(cat_col = case_when(
    ht_colonial %in% c("Spanish", "Portuguese") ~ "Spanish/Portuguese",
    .default = ht_colonial # what to do in all other cases
  )) |> 
  count(cat_col)
```

::: callout-note
#### Exercise

1.  Create a dummy variable, `d_large_pop`, for whether the country-year has a population of more than 1 million. Then compute its mean. Your code:

2.  Which countries are recorded as "Never colonized"? Change their values to other reasonable codings and compute a tabulation with `count()`. Your code:
:::

```{r}

qog_q1 <- qog |>
  mutate(d_large_pop = if_else(
    wdi_pop > 1000000, 1, 0)
  )

mean(qog_q1$d_large_pop)

qog_filtered <- qog |>
  filter(ht_colonial == "Never colonized")

qog_q2 <- qog |>
  mutate(ht_colonial = case_when(
    ht_colonial == "Never colonized" ~ "British",
    .default = ht_colonial # what to do in all other cases
  ))

table(qog_q2$ht_colonial)
table(qog$ht_colonial)
```

## Missing values

Missing values are commonplace in real datasets. In R, missing values are a special type of value in vectors, denoted as `NA`.

::: callout-warning
The special value `NA` is different from the character value "NA". For example, notice that a numeric vector can have `NAs`, while it obviously cannot hold the character value "NA":

```{r}
c(5, 4.6, NA, 8)
```
:::

A quick way to check for missing values in small datasets is with the `summary()` function:

```{r}
summary(qog)
```

Notice that we have missingness in the `vdem_polyarchy` and `vdem_corr` variables. We might want to filter the dataset to see which observations are in this situation:

```{r}
qog |> 
  filter(is.na(vdem_polyarchy) | is.na(vdem_corr))
```

But the code above doesn't work! To refer to missing values in logical conditions, we cannot use `== NA`. Instead, we need to use the `is.na()` function:

```{r}
qog |> 
  filter(is.na(vdem_polyarchy) | is.na(vdem_corr))
```

Notice that, in most R functions, missing values are "contagious." This means that any missing value will contaminate the operation and carry over to the results. For example:

```{r}
qog |> 
  summarize(mean_vdem_polyarchy = mean(vdem_polyarchy))
```

Sometimes we'd like to perform our operations even in the presence of missing values, simply excluding them. Most basic R functions have an `na.rm =` argument to do this:

```{r}
qog |> 
  summarize(mean_vdem_polyarchy = mean(vdem_polyarchy, na.rm = T))
```

::: callout-note
#### Exercise

Calculate the median value of the corruption variable for each region (i.e., perform a grouped summary). Your code:
:::

```{r}
qog |>
  summarise(med_corr = median(vdem_corr, na.rm = T),
            .by = region)
```

## Pivoting data

We will now load another time-series cross-sectional dataset, but in a slightly different format. It's adapted from the World Bank's World Development Indicators (WDI) ([2023](https://data.worldbank.org/)) and records gross domestic product at purchasing power parity (GDP PPP).

```{r}
gdp <- read_excel("data/wdi_gdp_ppp.xlsx")
```

```{r}
gdp
```

Note how the information is recorded differently. Here columns are not variables, but years. We call datasets like this one **wide**, in contrast to the **long** datasets we have seen before. In general, R and the `tidyverse` work much nicer with long datasets. Luckily, the `tidyr` package of the `tidyverse` makes it easy to convert datasets between these two formats.

![Source: Illustration [by Allison Horst](https://github.com/allisonhorst/stats-illustrations), adapted [by Peter Higgins](https://github.com/allisonhorst/stats-illustrations/issues/6).](images/tidyr_pivoting.png)

We will use the `pivot_longer()` function:

```{r}
gdp_long <- gdp |> 
  pivot_longer(cols = -c(country_name, country_code), # cols to not pivot
               names_to = "year", # how to name the column with names
               values_to = "wdi_gdp_ppp",  # how to name the column with values
               names_transform = as.integer) # make sure that years are numeric
gdp_long
```

Done! This is a much friendlier format to work with. For example, we can now do summaries:

```{r}
gdp_long |> 
  summarize(mean_gdp_ppp = mean(wdi_gdp_ppp, na.rm = T), 
            .by = country_name)

gdp |>
    summarise(mean_gdp_ppp = mean(wdi_gdp_ppp, na.rm = T),
              .by = country_name)
```

::: callout-note
#### Exercise

Convert back `gdp_long` to a wide format using `pivot_wider()`. Check out the help file using `?pivot_wider`. Your code:
:::

```{r}

gdp_wide <- gdp_long |>
  pivot_wider(
    id_cols = c(country_name, country_code),
    names_from = year,
    values_from = wdi_gdp_ppp)
  
```

## Merging datasets

It is extremely common to want to integrate data from multiple sources. Combining information from two datasets is called *merging* or *joining*.

To do this, we need ID variables in common between the two data sets. Using our QOG and WDI datasets, these variables will be country code (which in this case is shared between the two datasets) and year.

::: callout-tip
Standardized unit codes (like country codes) are extremely useful when merging data. It's harder than expected for a computer to realize that "Bolivia (Plurinational State of)" and "Bolivia" refer to the same unit. By default, these units will not be matched.[^2]
:::

[^2]: There are R packages to deal with these complications. [`fuzzyjoin`](https://github.com/dgrtwo/fuzzyjoin) matches units by their approximate distance, using some clever algorithms. [`countrycode`](https://vincentarelbundock.github.io/countrycode/) allows one to standardize country names and country codes across different conventions.

Okay, now to the merging. Imagine we want to add information about GDP to our QOG main dataset. To do so, we can use the `left_join()` function, from the `tidyverse`'s `dplyr` package:

```{r}
qog_plus <- left_join(qog, # left data frame, which serves as a "base"
                      gdp_long, # right data frame, from which to draw new columns
                      by = c("ccodealp" = "country_code", # can define name equivalencies!
                             "year"))
```

```{r}
qog_plus |> 
  # select variables for clarity
  select(cname, ccodealp, year, wdi_pop, wdi_gdp_ppp)
```

::: callout-tip
Most of the time, you'll want to do a `left_join()`, which is great for adding new information to a "base" dataset, without dropping information from the latter. In limited situations, other types of joins can be helpful. To learn more about them, you can read Jenny Bryan's [excellent tutorial](https://stat545.com/join-cheatsheet.html) on `dplyr` joins.
:::

::: callout-note
#### Exercise

There is a dataset on country's CO2 emissions, again from the World Bank ([2023](https://data.worldbank.org/)), in "data/wdi_co2.csv". Load the dataset into R and add a new variable with its information, `wdi_co2`, to our `qog_plus` data frame. Finally, compute the average values of CO2 emissions *per capita*, by country. Tip: this exercise requires you to do many steps---plan ahead before you start coding! Your code:
:::

```{r}
#| code-fold: true
#| message: false
# setup: these steps were executed before the exercise
library(tidyverse)
qog <- read_csv("data/sample_qog_bas_ts_jan23.csv")
gdp <- readxl::read_excel("data/wdi_gdp_ppp.xlsx")

gdp_long <- gdp |> 
  pivot_longer(cols = -c(country_name, country_code),
               names_to = "year",
               values_to = "wdi_gdp_ppp", 
               names_transform = as.integer)

qog_plus <- left_join(qog,
                      gdp_long,
                      by = c("ccodealp" = "country_code",
                             "year"))
```

1)  Load data (notice the .csv format):

```{r}
emissions <- read_csv("data/wdi_co2.csv")
```

2)  Pivot data to long, creating the "wdi_co2" variable:

```{r}
emissions_long <- emissions |> 
  pivot_longer(cols = -c(country_name, country_code),
               names_to = "year",
               values_to = "wdi_co2",  
               names_transform = as.integer)
```

3)  Merge-in information to our existing `qog_plus` data frame:

```{r}
qog_plus2 <- left_join(qog_plus,
                       emissions_long,
                       by = c("ccodealp" = "country_code",
                              "year"))
```

4)  Create column for emissions *per capita* (here we do per 1,000 people).

5)  Summarize information to get mean values at the country level (remember that `na.rm = T` is always a conscious decision):

```{r}
qog_plus2 |> 
  mutate(emissions_pc = 1000 * wdi_co2 / wdi_pop) |> 
  summarize(emissions_pc_country = mean(emissions_pc, na.rm = T),
            .by = cname)
```

### Sanity checks

Sanity checks are small tests to make sure that your code is doing what you think it's doing. They are especially important in complex operations like joins, but the idea can be extended to pretty much any command.

The `tidylog` package gives more information about `tidyverse` operations, and it's an easy/automatic way to check your work:

```{r}
#| message: false
library(tidylog)
```

```{r}
qog_plus <- left_join(qog, # left data frame, which serves as a "base"
                      gdp_long, # right data frame, from which to draw new columns
                      by = c("ccodealp" = "country_code", # can define name equivalencies!
                             "year"))
```

You can also construct sanity checks manually. For instance, we know that a left join shouldn't modify a data frame's number of rows:

```{r}
nrow(qog) == nrow(qog_plus)
```

## Plotting extensions: trend graphs, facets, and customization

::: callout-note
#### Exercise

Draw a scatterplot with time in the x-axis and democracy scores in the y-axis. Your code:
:::

```{r}
ggplot(qog_plus) + 
  aes(year, vdem_polyarchy) +
  geom_point()
```

How can we visualize trends effectively? One alternative is to use a trend graph. Let's start by computing the yearly averages for democracy in the whole region:

```{r}
dem_yearly <- qog |> 
  summarize(mean_dem = mean(vdem_polyarchy, na.rm = T), .by = year)

dem_yearly
```

Now we can plot them with a scatterplot:

```{r}
ggplot(dem_yearly, aes(x = year, y = mean_dem)) +
  geom_point()
```

We can add `geom_line()` to connect the dots:

```{r}
ggplot(dem_yearly, aes(x = year, y = mean_dem)) +
  geom_point() +
  geom_line()
```

We can, of course, remove to points to only keep the line:

```{r}
ggplot(dem_yearly, aes(x = year, y = mean_dem)) +
  geom_line()
```

What if we want to plot trends for different countries? We can use the `group` and `color` aesthetic mappings (no need to do a summary here! data is already at the country-year level):

```{r}
# filter to only get Colombia and Venezuela
dem_yearly_countries <- qog |> 
  filter(ccodealp %in% c("COL", "VEN"))

ggplot(dem_yearly_countries, 
       aes(x = year, y = vdem_polyarchy, color = cname)) +
  geom_line()
```

Remember that we can use the `labs()` function to add labels:

```{r}
ggplot(dem_yearly_countries, aes(x = year, y = vdem_polyarchy, color = cname)) +
  geom_line() +
  labs(x = "Year", 
       y = "V-Dem Electoral Democracy Score", color = "Country", 
       title = "Evolution of democracy scores in Colombia and Venezuela",
       caption = "Source: V-Dem (Coppedge et al., 2022) in QOG dataset.")
```

Another way to display these trends is by using *facets*, which divide a plot into small boxes according to a categorical variable (no need to add color here):

```{r}
ggplot(dem_yearly_countries, aes(x = year, y = vdem_polyarchy)) +
  geom_line() +
  facet_wrap(~cname)
```

Facets are particularly useful for many categories (where the number of distinguishable colors reaches its limit):

```{r}
#| out-width: 100%
ggplot(qog |> filter(region == "South America"), 
       aes(x = year, y = vdem_polyarchy)) +
  geom_line() +
  facet_wrap(~cname)
```

With facets, one can control whether each facet picks its own scales or if all facets share the same scale. For example, let's plot the populations of Canada and the US:

```{r}
ggplot(qog |> filter(cname %in% c("Canada", "United States")), 
       aes(x = year, y = wdi_pop)) +
  geom_line() +
  facet_wrap(~cname)
```

The scales are so disparate that unifying them yields a plot that's hard to interpret. But if we're interested in within-country trends, we can let each facet have its own scale with the `scales =` argument (which can be "fixed", "free_x", "free_y", or "free"):

```{r}
ggplot(qog |> filter(cname %in% c("Canada", "United States")), 
       aes(x = year, y = wdi_pop)) +
  geom_line() +
  facet_wrap(~cname, scales = "free_y")
```

This ability to visualize *within* time trends also makes facets appealing in many situations.

::: callout-tip
Plots made with `ggplot2` are extremely customizable. For example, we could want to change the y-axis labels in the last plot to something more readable:

```{r}
# create as object "p" to use later
p <- ggplot(qog |> filter(cname %in% c("Canada", "United States")), 
       aes(x = year, y = wdi_pop)) +
  geom_line() +
  facet_wrap(~cname, scales = "free_y") +
  scale_y_continuous(labels = scales::label_number(big.mark = ",")) +
  # also add labels
  labs(x = "Year", y = "Population",
       title = "Population trends in Canada and the United States",
       caption = "Source: World Development Indicators (World Bank, 2023) in QOG dataset.")
p
```

While it's impossible for us to review all the customization options you might need, a fantastic reference is the ["ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis"](https://ggplot2-book.org/) book by Hadley Wickham, Danielle Navarro, and Thomas Lin Pedersen.
:::

::: callout-note
#### Exercise

Using your merged dataset from the previous section, plot the trajectories of C02 per capita emissions for the US and Haiti. Use adequate scales.
:::

### Themes

We can change the overall aspect of a `ggplot2` figure by changing its theme:

```{r}
p +
  theme_minimal()
```

```{r}
p +
  theme_classic()
```

```{r}
p + 
  theme_bw()
```

If you are going to make multiple plots in a script, you can set the theme at the beginning with `theme_bw()`:

```{r}
theme_set(theme_bw())
p
```
