Panel data

Last updated

In statistics and econometrics, panel data and longitudinal data [1] [2] are both multi-dimensional data involving measurements over time. Panel data is a subset of longitudinal data where observations are for the same subjects each time.

Contents

Time series and cross-sectional data can be thought of as special cases of panel data that are in one dimension only (one panel member or individual for the former, one time point for the latter). A literature search often involves time series, cross-sectional, or panel data. Cross-panel data (CPD) is an innovative yet underappreciated source of information in the mathematical and statistical sciences. CPD stands out from other research methods because it vividly illustrates how independent and dependent variables may shift between countries. This panel data collection allows researchers to examine the connection between variables across several cross-sections and time periods and analyze the results of policy actions in other nations. [3]

A study that uses panel data is called a longitudinal study or panel study.

Example

MRPP balanced panel
personyearincomeagesex
120161300271
120171600281
120182000291
220162000382
220172300392
220182400402
MRPP unbalanced panel
personyearincomeagesex
120161600231
120171500241
220161900412
220172000422
220182100432
320173300341

In the multiple response permutation procedure (MRPP) example above, two datasets with a panel structure are shown and the objective is to test whether there's a significant difference between people in the sample data. Individual characteristics (income, age, sex) are collected for different persons and different years. In the first dataset, two persons (1, 2) are observed every year for three years (2016, 2017, 2018). In the second dataset, three persons (1, 2, 3) are observed two times (person 1), three times (person 2), and one time (person 3), respectively, over three years (2016, 2017, 2018); in particular, person 1 is not observed in year 2018 and person 3 is not observed in 2016 or 2018.

A balanced panel (e.g., the first dataset above) is a dataset in which each panel member (i.e., person) is observed every year. Consequently, if a balanced panel contains panel members and periods, the number of observations () in the dataset is necessarily .

An unbalanced panel (e.g., the second dataset above) is a dataset in which at least one panel member is not observed every period. Therefore, if an unbalanced panel contains panel members and periods, then the following strict inequality holds for the number of observations () in the dataset: .

Both datasets above are structured in the long format, which is where one row holds one observation per time. Another way to structure panel data would be the wide format where one row represents one observational unit for all points in time (for the example, the wide format would have only two (first example) or three (second example) rows of data with additional columns for each time-varying variable (income, age).

Analysis

A panel has the form

where is the individual dimension and is the time dimension. A general panel data regression model is written as . Different assumptions can be made on the precise structure of this general model. Two important models are the fixed effects model and the random effects model.

Consider a generic panel data model:

are individual-specific, time-invariant effects (e.g., in a panel of countries this could include geography, climate, etc.) which are fixed over time, whereas is a time-varying random component.

If is unobserved, and correlated with at least one of the independent variables, then it will cause omitted variable bias in a standard OLS regression. However, panel data methods, such as the fixed effects estimator or alternatively, the first-difference estimator can be used to control for it.

If is not correlated with any of the independent variables, ordinary least squares linear regression methods can be used to yield unbiased and consistent estimates of the regression parameters. However, because is fixed over time, it will induce serial correlation in the error term of the regression. This means that more efficient estimation techniques are available. Random effects is one such method: it is a special case of feasible generalized least squares which controls for the structure of the serial correlation induced by .

Dynamic panel data

Dynamic panel data describes the case where a lag of the dependent variable is used as regressor:

The presence of the lagged dependent variable violates strict exogeneity, that is, endogeneity may occur. The fixed effect estimator and the first differences estimator both rely on the assumption of strict exogeneity. Hence, if is believed to be correlated with one of the independent variables, an alternative estimation technique must be used. Instrumental variables or GMM techniques are commonly used in this situation, such as the Arellano–Bond estimator. While estimating this we should have the proper information about the instrumental variables.

Data sets which have a panel design

Data sets which have a multi-dimensional panel design

Notes

  1. Diggle, Peter J.; Heagerty, Patrick; Liang, Kung-Yee; Zeger, Scott L. (2002). Analysis of Longitudinal Data (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. p.  2. ISBN   0-19-852484-6.
  2. Fitzmaurice, Garrett M.; Laird, Nan M.; Ware, James H. (2004). Applied Longitudinal Analysis. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. p. 2. ISBN   0-471-21487-6.
  3. Zaman, Khalid (2023-01-24). "A Note on Cross-Panel Data Techniques". Latest Developments in Econometrics. 1 (1): 1–7. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7565625.

Related Research Articles

In statistics, the Gauss–Markov theorem states that the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimator has the lowest sampling variance within the class of linear unbiased estimators, if the errors in the linear regression model are uncorrelated, have equal variances and expectation value of zero. The errors do not need to be normal, nor do they need to be independent and identically distributed. The requirement that the estimator be unbiased cannot be dropped, since biased estimators exist with lower variance. See, for example, the James–Stein estimator, ridge regression, or simply any degenerate estimator.

In statistics and optimization, errors and residuals are two closely related and easily confused measures of the deviation of an observed value of an element of a statistical sample from its "true value". The error of an observation is the deviation of the observed value from the true value of a quantity of interest. The residual is the difference between the observed value and the estimated value of the quantity of interest. The distinction is most important in regression analysis, where the concepts are sometimes called the regression errors and regression residuals and where they lead to the concept of studentized residuals. In econometrics, "errors" are also called disturbances.

In statistics, a generalized linear model (GLM) is a flexible generalization of ordinary linear regression. The GLM generalizes linear regression by allowing the linear model to be related to the response variable via a link function and by allowing the magnitude of the variance of each measurement to be a function of its predicted value.

In statistics, econometrics, epidemiology and related disciplines, the method of instrumental variables (IV) is used to estimate causal relationships when controlled experiments are not feasible or when a treatment is not successfully delivered to every unit in a randomized experiment. Intuitively, IVs are used when an explanatory variable of interest is correlated with the error term (endogenous), in which case ordinary least squares and ANOVA give biased results. A valid instrument induces changes in the explanatory variable but has no independent effect on the dependent variable and is not correlated with the error term, allowing a researcher to uncover the causal effect of the explanatory variable on the dependent variable.

In statistics, omitted-variable bias (OVB) occurs when a statistical model leaves out one or more relevant variables. The bias results in the model attributing the effect of the missing variables to those that were included.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ordinary least squares</span> Method for estimating the unknown parameters in a linear regression model

In statistics, ordinary least squares (OLS) is a type of linear least squares method for choosing the unknown parameters in a linear regression model by the principle of least squares: minimizing the sum of the squares of the differences between the observed dependent variable in the input dataset and the output of the (linear) function of the independent variable. Some sources consider OLS to be linear regression.

Panel (data) analysis is a statistical method, widely used in social science, epidemiology, and econometrics to analyze two-dimensional panel data. The data are usually collected over time and over the same individuals and then a regression is run over these two dimensions. Multidimensional analysis is an econometric method in which data are collected over more than two dimensions.

In statistics, the ordered logit model is an ordinal regression model—that is, a regression model for ordinal dependent variables—first considered by Peter McCullagh. For example, if one question on a survey is to be answered by a choice among "poor", "fair", "good", "very good" and "excellent", and the purpose of the analysis is to see how well that response can be predicted by the responses to other questions, some of which may be quantitative, then ordered logistic regression may be used. It can be thought of as an extension of the logistic regression model that applies to dichotomous dependent variables, allowing for more than two (ordered) response categories.

In statistics, a fixed effects model is a statistical model in which the model parameters are fixed or non-random quantities. This is in contrast to random effects models and mixed models in which all or some of the model parameters are random variables. In many applications including econometrics and biostatistics a fixed effects model refers to a regression model in which the group means are fixed (non-random) as opposed to a random effects model in which the group means are a random sample from a population. Generally, data can be grouped according to several observed factors. The group means could be modeled as fixed or random effects for each grouping. In a fixed effects model each group mean is a group-specific fixed quantity.

In statistics, binomial regression is a regression analysis technique in which the response has a binomial distribution: it is the number of successes in a series of independent Bernoulli trials, where each trial has probability of success . In binomial regression, the probability of a success is related to explanatory variables: the corresponding concept in ordinary regression is to relate the mean value of the unobserved response to explanatory variables.

In statistics, a random effects model, also called a variance components model, is a statistical model where the model parameters are random variables. It is a kind of hierarchical linear model, which assumes that the data being analysed are drawn from a hierarchy of different populations whose differences relate to that hierarchy. A random effects model is a special case of a mixed model.

The topic of heteroskedasticity-consistent (HC) standard errors arises in statistics and econometrics in the context of linear regression and time series analysis. These are also known as heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors, Eicker–Huber–White standard errors, to recognize the contributions of Friedhelm Eicker, Peter J. Huber, and Halbert White.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Errors-in-variables models</span> Regression models accounting for possible errors in independent variables

In statistics, errors-in-variables models or measurement error models are regression models that account for measurement errors in the independent variables. In contrast, standard regression models assume that those regressors have been measured exactly, or observed without error; as such, those models account only for errors in the dependent variables, or responses.

In statistics and econometrics, the first-difference (FD) estimator is an estimator used to address the problem of omitted variables with panel data. It is consistent under the assumptions of the fixed effects model. In certain situations it can be more efficient than the standard fixed effects estimator.

In econometrics, the Arellano–Bond estimator is a generalized method of moments estimator used to estimate dynamic models of panel data. It was proposed in 1991 by Manuel Arellano and Stephen Bond, based on the earlier work by Alok Bhargava and John Denis Sargan in 1983, for addressing certain endogeneity problems. The GMM-SYS estimator is a system that contains both the levels and the first difference equations. It provides an alternative to the standard first difference GMM estimator.

In linear panel analysis, it can be desirable to estimate the magnitude of the fixed effects, as they provide measures of the unobserved components. For instance, in wage equation regressions, fixed effects capture unobservables that are constant over time, such as motivation. Chamberlain's approach to unobserved effects models is a way of estimating the linear unobserved effects, under fixed effect assumptions, in the following unobserved effects model

In statistics, linear regression is a statistical model which estimates the linear relationship between a scalar response and one or more explanatory variables. The case of one explanatory variable is called simple linear regression; for more than one, the process is called multiple linear regression. This term is distinct from multivariate linear regression, where multiple correlated dependent variables are predicted, rather than a single scalar variable. If the explanatory variables are measured with error then errors-in-variables models are required, also known as measurement error models.

In least squares estimation problems, sometimes one or more regressors specified in the model are not observable. One way to circumvent this issue is to estimate or generate regressors from observable data. This generated regressor method is also applicable to unobserved instrumental variables. Under some regularity conditions, consistency and asymptotic normality of least squares estimator is preserved, but asymptotic variance has a different form in general.

A partially linear model is a form of semiparametric model, since it contains parametric and nonparametric elements. Application of the least squares estimators is available to partially linear model, if the hypothesis of the known of nonparametric element is valid. Partially linear equations were first used in the analysis of the relationship between temperature and usage of electricity by Engle, Granger, Rice and Weiss (1986). Typical application of partially linear model in the field of Microeconomics is presented by Tripathi in the case of profitability of firm's production in 1997. Also, partially linear model applied successfully in some other academic field. In 1994, Zeger and Diggle introduced partially linear model into biometrics. In environmental science, Parda-Sanchez et al. used partially linear model to analysis collected data in 2000. So far, partially linear model was optimized in many other statistic methods. In 1988, Robinson applied Nadaraya-Waston kernel estimator to test the nonparametric element to build a least-squares estimator After that, in 1997, local linear method was found by Truong.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homoscedasticity and heteroscedasticity</span> Statistical property

In statistics, a sequence of random variables is homoscedastic if all its random variables have the same finite variance; this is also known as homogeneity of variance. The complementary notion is called heteroscedasticity, also known as heterogeneity of variance. The spellings homoskedasticity and heteroskedasticity are also frequently used. Skedasticity comes from the Ancient Greek word skedánnymi, meaning “to scatter”. Assuming a variable is homoscedastic when in reality it is heteroscedastic results in unbiased but inefficient point estimates and in biased estimates of standard errors, and may result in overestimating the goodness of fit as measured by the Pearson coefficient.

References