st: panel data

[Stata Beginner <statabeginner@yahoo.com>]

Hi,

I am very new this forum and I have never done panel data analysis in Stata and I am using Stata9.1 version. Also I apologize in advance if the answer to this was easy to find elsewhere ( I would appreciate if you could point me to that forum).

 I have few questions regarding the panel data. First here are few details of the dataset I am working on:

- My dependent variable has the data for 23firms and  25years. Can I use panel data for this data set or do I need to use multiple time series analysis?
- I have 7 independent variables. let us name them :x1, x2, x3, x4, x5, x6, x7. Variables x1 to x4 has the data for all the 23 firms with all the 25 years.
- However, x5 has data for only 10 years while x6 and x7 has the data for only last year.
- So Can I run the panel data for y against x1 to x5 and run the simple OLS using the mean of y and mean of ( x1-x5) and x6 and x7?
- Also for the panel data, I have created ids and sorted the data on y(N) and y(t) and then can I run the following command?
     areg y x1 x2 x3 x4 x5, absorb( idvar)

I appreciate your help!

Thanks!
SB

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