Dear all,

I have panel covering the period 1970-2010 with country-year being the unit of analysis. The data looks something like this:
country year X
A 1970 12
A 1971 9
B 1970 8
B 1971 11
B 1972 13
B 1973 4
C 1970 5
C 1971 3
C 1972 8
I would like to generate a variable X1 in Stata that would take the first value of X( that is in 1970!) for the whole period. So for example, the X1 for country B should be "8" for all years. To illustrate this:
country year X X1
A 1970 12 12
A 1971 9 12
B 1970 8 8
B 1971 11 8
B 1972 13 8
B 1973 4 8
C 1970 5 5
C 1971 5 5
C 1972 5 5
I've tried different things with "generate X1= if" what I can't come up how to solve this. Anyone here who can help me with this?