Causal inference receives a massive upgrade in this version. The software refines its machine learning integration to deliver more robust treatment effects.

Key trends to watch:

Stata has long allowed users to export results to Microsoft Word and Excel, but version 18 adds significant new capabilities. The putdocx command now supports bookmarks in paragraphs and tables, image text for voice software (improving accessibility), and SVG images in Word documents. For Excel exports, putexcel gains the ability to include headers, footers, and page breaks—small additions that make a substantial difference when producing professional-grade reports.

Say goodbye to the iconic but dated gray-background plots. Stata 18 debuts as its default graphic scheme.

putexcel set report.xlsx, replace putexcel A1 = image(violin.png)

Stata provides the Python package, which allows you to call Stata commands from within Python. The package works with Python 2.7 or 3.4 and later versions, and for full functionality it requires NumPy 1.9+ and pandas 0.15+. Once configured, you can execute Stata commands, transfer data between Python and Stata, and incorporate Stata’s specialized statistical procedures into Python-based workflows.

1. High-Dimensional Fixed Effects (HDFE) and Advanced Econometrics