I’m using an older version of Stata, and it won’t open the file. How can I use the SWIID?

Stata 13 introduced a new file format which older versions of Stata can’t open. Fortunately, there’s an easy fix: the use13 command. In the command window, first type ssc install use13 to install it. Then you can type use13 SWIIDv5_0.dta, clear to load the SWIID data.

Update: Version 5.1 is saved in the older file format, so this shouldn’t be a problem anymore.