How to Correctly Structure a File for Import into E-Views

[fan_of_eviews]

I am using E-Views 7. I have an unbalanced panel of data that consists of 20 cross-sectional units (markets). Each of these markets markets contains a different number of time-series (daily) observations. These range from 31 days for the shortest market to 48 days for the longest market.

I currently have the data in stacked form in an Excel 2007 file. The data are, somewhat arbitrarily, organized in this stacked format according to alphabetical order of the cross-section name. To be as clear as possible, please let me specify in more detail how the data is arranged in Excel:

Relative-Day Market (# of observations) Dependent Variable Independent Variables

Under the relevant headings, I have 43 observations for "Market A." I then have 41 observations for "Market B," and so on until "Market T" (the 20th and final market), which as 40 observations.

The missing data values can arguably be considered as randomly missing, so I am not concerned about any potential inferential problems associated with having an unbalanced panel. What I am concerned with is how to structure the data in Excel before importing it into E-Views.

Since the longest market has 48 observations, do I need to have 48 rows for each cross-section with NAs entered where the data is missing? In other words, do I need to "artifically balance" the data before importing it into E-Views? If not, then will I be fine leaving the data in stacked format, given an unequal number of days for each of the cross-sections?

In considering my question, please be advised that my analysis will involve the use of lagged values of the dependent variable. In other words, I will be conducting dynamic panel data analysis. As such, I need E-Views to recognize the panel structure of the data and not "lag into" the values for the preceding cross-section.

Finally, if I need to "artificially balance" the data prior to importing it into E-Views, then should I enter the NA values at the beginning or at the end of the respective markets? For instance, say that I am dealing with Market A, which has 43 observations. With the maximum number of observations at 48, I would need to enter 5 NA values. Should I do this as

NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
43 values

or as

43 values
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA

Thanks in advance for your help.

[EViews Gareth]

I'm using my phone, so can't give you a full answer. However, I can give you a few clues. Once your workfile is setup as a panel you don't need to worry about lags, even if you're unbalanced - EViews will know how to handle it properly.

You also don't need to worry about filling in NAs in Excel. EViews will handle them.

Essentially as long as you have a column in Excel outlining what the cross-section is, and another outlining what the date is, you'll be fine, no matter how unbalanced it is.


Great name by the way.

[EViews Gareth]

Also, if you haven't already done so you should read the panel data guide:
http://forums.eviews.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=74

[fan_of_eviews]

Gareth,

I appreciate the prompt response. The EViews panel guide was immensely useful in helping me to learn how to get my data into panel format.

I am glad that you like the nickname. I chose it for a reason: after dealing with STATA and SAS for a couple of years, I had all but given up on being able to conduct the type of time-series analyses that interested me, without having to create detailed programs from scratch. Much of my work is, by nature, exploratory so I do not want to have to spend countless hours constructing programs that I may never use more than once. EViews has changed all of that for me. The interface is intuitive and the methods are powerful. I can learn more from "playing around" for one hour with my data in EViews than I could in several days with the other software.

Anyway, enough gushing on my part. Thanks again for all of your help.

fan_of_eviews