*Next we'll deal with any firms that have an IPO and an M&A and decide which we'll keep
*And then we'll join in the chosen IPO and M&A data and move on!
==Cleaning IPO and MA Data==
It is important to follow Ed's direction of cleaning the data using aggregate function before putting the data into excel. This will keep you from a lot of manual checking that is unnecessary. When ready, paste the data you have into an excel file. In that excel file, I made three columns: one to check whether state codes were equivalent, one checking whether the date of first investment was 3 years before the MA or IPO, and one checking whether both of these conditions were satisfied for each company. I did this using simple if statements. This process is manual checking and filtering to see whether matches are correct or not and are thus extremely subjective and tedious. First, I went through and checked the companies that did not have equivalent state codes. If the company was one that I knew or the name was unique to the point that I did not believe the same name would appear in another state, I marked the state codes as equivalent. I did the same for the date of first investment vs MA/IPO date. Then I removed all duplicates that had the marking Warning Multiple Matches, and the data sheets were clean.