A Practical Guide to Using Panel Data

Simonetta Longhi is Research Fellow at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex.  She is also Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labour (IZA) and Research Affiliate at the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).  Her research interests are on migration and labour economics and she has published various journal articles using individual and household datasets.  For many years she has taught courses on how to analyse the British Household Panel Survey and the Understanding Society datasets, and she is currently teaching a course on applications of data analysis.Alita Nandi is Research Fellow at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.  Her research interests include issues of ethnicity, identity, personality, family formation and dissolution. She has conducted empirical research in these areas using cohort and household panel datasets and published in various journals. She has been part of the Ethnicity Strand of Understanding Society since 2007. For the last few years she has taught courses on applications of data analysis and on how to use and analyse the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society datasets.

This book is exactly what I have been looking for in my teaching, as a valuable guide for graduate and advanced undergraduate students who are thinking of tackling panel data but feel overwhelmed by how complicated it seems compared to working with standard cross-sectional datasets. The authors nicely combine discussion of general statistical principles with lots of example Stata code demonstrating many types of analysis. Critically, the book tells students and researchers not only how to carry out analysis but shows how to prepare and manage panel data.

• PART ONE: DATA PREPARATION IN MICRO PANEL SURVEYS Why Panel Surveys Different Types of Panel Surveys A First Look at the Data Using Stata Preparing the Data for Longitudinal Analysis Working with Multiple DatasetsIdentifying Household Members and Matching Information of Spouses and PartnersPART TWO: ANALYSIS OF CROSS-SECTION AND PANEL DATA Sample Design, Non-response and WeightsAnalysis of Cross-Section Data Analysis of Panel Data for Continuous Dependent Variables Analysis of Panel Data for Discrete Dependent VariablesPART THREE: EVENT HISTORY: DATA PREPARATION AND ANALYSISIntroduction to Duration AnalysisHow to Use Retrospective History Data Files: an ExampleAnalysis of Event History DataPART FOUR: PRESENTING YOUR RESULTS Producing Output Tables and Graphs