The downloaded and cleaned Eurostat files are usually not in the format that most statistical softwares (Stata, SPSS) require to handle panel datasets. The format is usually of the form:

ID Year Var
———–
1  2001   1
1  2002   0
1  2003   1
2  2001   1
2  2002   1
2  2003   0

such that the ID and Year combination has not duplicates. Eurostat files are given in the “wide” format where the columns represent the variables across time in the following format:

ID Var_2001 Var_2002 Var_2003
—————————–
1         1        0        1
2         1        1        0

 

The follow Stata syntax reshapes the data files in the correct format:

 

use ./split/nama_gdp_c.dta   // read the file

reshape long y, i(geo unit indic_na) j(time) string   // reshape from wide to long 

destring _all, replace  // convert string variables to numeric

encode geo, gen(geo2) // generate a numerical variable for countries

compress

save ./final/nama_gdp_c.dta, replace

The file can now be set up in a panel format by defining a unique id based on panel indicator (geo, indicator) and time indicator (year).

Other posts in this series:
Part 2: Formatting data files
Part 1: Downloading files