Forward and backward stepwise selection - Panel data

[catherinebrunet2]

Hi!

I am relatively new with panel data manipulation. I am currently working on building a model to predict the impact of several macroeconomic variables (14) on the household consumption (my dependent variables), for a panel of 30 countries over the 1985-2010 period. As such, I have more than 196 possible models, and would like to know if it possible to use the stepwise (forward and backward) option that is included in the equation object. More precisely, I want to know how this stepwise procedures works in this specific case where I have 30 cross-sections over more than 26 years of data, and if it is valid.

As a side note, I am using Eviews 8.

Thank you!