Practical guides to panel data modeling: A step by step analysis using Stata

Abstract

Panel data are also called longitudinal data or cross-sectional time-series data. These longitudinal data have “observations on the same units in several different time periods” (Kennedy, 2008: 281); A panel data set has multiple entities, each of which has repeated measurements at different time periods. Panel data may have individual (group) effect, time effect, or both, which are analyzed by fixed effect and/or random effect models The motivation of this document is several IUJ master’s theses that, I think, applied panel data models inappropriately and failed to interpret the results correctly. This document is intended to provide practical guides of panel data modeling, in particular, for writing a master’s thesis. Students can learn how to 1) organize panel data, 2) recognize and handle ill- organized data, 3) choose a proper panel data model, 4) read and report Stata output correctly, 5) interpret the result substantively, and 6) present the result in a professional manner.