Panel data
Take full advantage of the extra information that panel data provide while simultaneously handling the peculiarities of panel data. Study the time-invariant features within each panel, the relationships across panels, and how outcomes of interest change over time. Fit linear models or nonlinear models for binary, count, ordinal, censored, or survival outcomes with fixed-effects, random-effects, or population-averaged estimators. Fit linear models with high-dimensional fixed effects. Fit dynamic models or models with endogeneity. Fit Bayesian panel-data models.

Time series
Handle the statistical challenges inherent to time-series data—autocorrelations, common factors, autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity, unit roots, cointegration, and much more. Analyze univariate time series using ARIMA, ARFIMA, Markov-switching models, ARCH and GARCH models, and unobserved-components models. Compare ARIMA or ARFIMA models using AIC, BIC, and HQIC, and select the best number of autoregressive and moving-average terms. Analyze multivariate time series using VAR, structural VAR, instrumental-variables (proxy) structural VAR, VEC, multivariate GARCH, dynamic-factor models, and state-space models. Compute and graph impulse responses. Test for unit roots. Perform Bayesian time-series analysis.

Cross-sectional models
Fit classical linear models of the relationship between a continuous outcome, such as wage, and the determinants of wage, such as education level, age, experience, and economic sector. If your response is binary (for example, employed or unemployed), ordinal (education level), count (number of children), or censored (ticket sales in an existing venue), don't worry. Stata has maximum likelihood estimators—probit, ordered probit, Poisson, tobit, and many others—that estimate the relationship between such outcomes and their determinants. A vast array of tools is available to analyze such models. Predict outcomes and their confidence intervals. Test equality of parameters, or any linear or nonlinear combination of parameters.

Endogeneity and selection
When explanatory variables are related to omitted observable variables, or when they are related to unobservable variables, or when there is selection bias, then causal relationships are confounded and parameter estimates from standard estimators produce inconsistent estimates of the true relationships. Stata can fit consistent models when there is such endogeneity or selection—whether your outcome variable is continuous, binary, count, or ordinal and whether your data are cross-sectional or panel. Stata can even combine endogenous covariates, selection, and treatment effects in the same model.

Causal inference/Treatment effects
Estimate experimental-style causal effects from observational data; for instance, estimate the effect of a job training program on employment or the effect of a subsidy on production. Fit models for continuous, binary, count, fractional, and survival outcomes with binary or multivalued treatments using inverse-probability weighting (IPW), propensity-score matching, nearest-neighbor matching, regression adjustment, or doubly robust estimators. Fit models with exogenous or endogenous treatments. After estimation, test the overlap assumption and covariate balance. Add endogenous covariates and sample selection to some treatment-effects estimators. In the presence of group and time effects, you can use difference-in-differences (DID) and triple-differences (DDD) estimators. In the presence of high-dimensional covariates, you can use lasso. If causal effects are mediated through another variable, use causal mediation with mediate to disentangle direct and indirect effects.

Marginal effects and marginal means
Marginal effects and marginal means let you analyze and visualize the relationships between your outcome variable and your covariates, even when that outcome is binary, count, ordinal, categorical, or censored (tobit). Estimate population-averaged marginal effects or evaluate marginal effects at interesting or representative values of the covariates. Analyze the effect of interactions. You can even trace out the marginal effect over a range of interesting covariate values or covariate interactions. You can do all of this with marginal means (sometimes called potential-outcome means), even when your “mean” is a probability of a positive outcome or a count from a Poisson model. If you have panel data and random effects, these effects are automatically integrated out to provide marginal (that is, population-averaged) effects.

Choice models
Model your discrete choice data. If your outcome is, for instance, a choice to travel by bus, train, car, or airplane, you can fit a conditional logit, multinomial probit, or mixed logit model. Is your outcome instead a ranking of prefered travel methods? Fit a rank-ordered probit or rank-ordered logit model. Regardless of the model fit, you can use the margins to easily interpret the results. Estimate how much wait times at the airport affect the probability of traveling by air or even by train.

GMM
GMM (generalized method of moments) can be used to fit almost any statistical model, including both exactly identified and overidentified estimation problems. Overidentified problems arise when you have endogeneity, correlation in dynamic panels, sample selection, and many other situations. With Stata, you estimate these models by simply writing your moments and enclosing the parameters in curly braces. You can easily fit cross-sectional, time-series, panel-data, or survival-data models and test your overidentifying restrictions.

Demand systems
Fit demand systems to explore consumers' demand for goods and services. Given a budget and a bundle of goods and services, determine the expenditure and price elasticities for these goods. Choose between the Cobb–Douglas system, Stone's linear expenditure system, the translog indirect utility demand system, the almost ideal demand system (AIDS), the quadratic almost ideal demand system (QUAIDS), and others.

Lasso
Use lasso and elastic net for model selection and prediction. And when you want to estimate effects and test coefficients for a few variables of interest, inferential methods provide estimates for these variables while using lassos to select from among a potentially large number of control variables. You can even account for endogenous covariates. Whether your goal is model selection, prediction, or inference, you can use Stata's lasso features with your continuous, binary, count, or time-to-event outcomes.

Programming
Want to program your own commands to perform estimation, perform data management, or implement other new features? Stata is programmable, and thousands of Stata users have implemented and published thousands of community-contributed commands. These commands look and act just like official Stata commands and are easily installed for free over the Internet from within Stata. A unique feature of Stata's programming environment is Mata, a fast and compiled language with support for matrix types. Of course, it has all the advanced matrix operations you need. It also has access to the power of LAPACK. What's more, it has built-in solvers and optimizers to make implementing your own maximum likelihood, GMM, or other estimators easier. And you can leverage all of Stata's estimation and other features from within Mata. Many of Stata's official commands are themselves implemented in Mata.

PyStata—Python integration
Interact Stata code with Python code. You can seamlessly pass data and results between Stata and Python. You can use Stata within Jupyter Notebook and other IPython environments. You can call Python libraries such as NumPy, matplotlib, Scrapy, scikit-learn, and more from Stata. You can use Stata analyses from within Python.

Forecasting
Build multiequation models, and produce forecasts of levels, trends, rates, etc. Whether you have a small model with a few equations or a complete model of the economy with thousands of equations, Stata can help you build that model and produce forecasts. Your model can include both estimated relationships and known identities. You can easily create and compare forecasts under different scenarios, create static and dynamic forecasts, and even estimate stochastic confidence intervals. You can create your model by using an intuitive command syntax or by using the interactive forecasting control panel.

Survival analysis
Analyze duration outcomes—outcomes measuring the time to an event such as failure or death—using Stata's specialized tools for survival analysis. Account for the complications inherent in survival data, such as sometimes not observing the event (right-, left-, and interval-censoring), individuals entering the study at differing times (delayed entry), and individuals who are not continuously observed throughout the study (gaps). You can estimate and plot the probability of survival over time. Or model survival as a function of covariates using Cox, Weibull, lognormal, and other regression models. Predict hazard ratios, mean survival time, and survival probabilities. Do you have groups of individuals in your study? Adjust for within-group correlation with a random-effects or shared-frailty model. If you have many potential covariates, use lasso cox and elasticnet cox for model selection and prediction.

Bayesian analysis
Perform Bayesian econometrics analysis using one of the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. You can choose from various supported models, such as panel-data, hierarchical, VAR, and DSGE models, or you can even program your own. Extensive tools are available to check convergence, including multiple chains. Compute posterior mean estimates and credible intervals for model parameters and functions of model parameters. You can perform both interval- and model-based hypothesis testing. Compare models using Bayes factors. Compute model fit using posterior predictive values. Generate predictions and forecasts. If you want to account for model uncertainty in your regression model, use Bayesian model averaging.

Survey methods
Whether your data require a simple weighted adjustment because of differential sampling rates or you have data from a complex multistage survey, Stata's survey features can provide you with correct standard errors and confidence intervals for your inferences. Simply specify the relevant characteristics of your sampling design, such as sampling weights (including weights at multiple stages), clustering (at one, two, or more stages), stratification, and poststratification. After that, most of Stata's estimation commands can adjust their estimates to correct for your sampling design.

Meta-analysis
Combine results of multiple studies to estimate an overall effect. Use forest plots to visualize results. Use subgroup analysis and meta-regression to explore study heterogeneity. Use funnel plots and formal tests to explore publication bias and small-study effects. Use trim-and-fill analysis to assess the impact of publication bias on results. Perform cumulative and leave-one-out meta-analysis. Perform univariate, multilevel, and multivariate meta-analysis. Use the meta suite, or let the Control Panel interface guide you through your entire meta-analysis.

Automated reporting and customizable tables
Stata is designed for reproducible research, including the ability to create dynamic documents incorporating your analysis results. Create Word or PDF files, populate Excel worksheets with results and format them to your liking, and mix Markdown, HTML, Stata results, and Stata graphs, all from within Stata. Create tables that compare regression results or summary statistics, use default styles or apply your own, and export your tables to Word, PDF, HTML, LaTeX, Excel, or Markdown and include them in your reports.