Hello,

I hope to ask if anyone can help me create simple line charts for my panel data. The panel data consist of firms (1992-2016, every two years) operating in 115 countries. There are other variables I hope to take into account (e.g. naics, entry mode, activity, parent name, etc.) when creating line charts. Also, the firm information is missing for some years (unbalanced).

Examples:
GE / 1992 / China / Shanghai subsidiary / Manufacturing
GE / 1994 / China / Shanghai subsidiary / Manufacturing
...
GE / 2016 / China / Shanghai subsidiary / Manufacturing
GE / 1992 / US / New York subsidiary / Service
GE / 1996 / US / New York subsidiary / Service
GE / 2000 / US / New York subsidiary / Service
...
Facebook / 2000 / Israel / Tel Aviv subsidiary / Sales
Facebook / 2002 / Israel / Tel Aviv subsidiary / Sales
...

Each of the subsidiaries has its own ID. So, the GE's Shanghai subsidiary in China will have its own ID and is also given the same parent id for GE's subsidiaries across all countries. Based on these types of information, I need line charts that show which countries the number of firms is growing generally across years, for example. Could you tell me which command I should use?

Also, there are simply too many countries (115) that it may be difficult to tell which country indicates which line. Do you have any suggestion on how to create a line chart that can more clearly show data? Or should I use other graphs than line charts?

Additionally, it is unbalanced so some years are missing - is there any way that the missing years can be also counted on the chart? For example, as an example above, GE's NY subsidiary for service is missing in 1994 but I hope it to be counted in the chart. Is it possible?

Lastly, I'm looking at not only the number of each subsidiaries in each country across years but also the number of parent firms in each country across years or the number of subsidiaries in the same naics category. In other words, if the unit of analysis is different than just the number of unique firm IDs, which command should I use?

I appreciate your help in advance!