Hello all,

I have individual panel data and two state-level panels I seek to merge together. I have questions about (1) the nature of the panel after the merge, and then (2) I have a question about fixed effects. The individual panel has state and time variables. State panel A includes a variety of economic statistics, and naturally includes state and time variables. State panel B includes dummy variables for regulatory changes in various states, and also includes state and time variables.

(1) My plan is to merge individual panel to state panel A using the state and time variables, and then merge state panel B into the merged panel also using state and time variables. Once everything is merged together, do I have to do anything with xtset? Am I correct that I still have individual panel data? For each individual ID associated with a state, I also have variables associated with (1) econ stats and (2) regulatory changes applied to each ID/state category. So in long form I would effectively have:

ID year state var1 var2 econ stat1 reg change

1 2000 AL 5 10 5.6 1
1 2001 AL 4 12 5.4 0

etc.....


Am I correct that I still have an individual panel here? Just making sure I'm not missing something.



(2) I'm using fixed effects regression. Given that I have an individual panel, would I just use xtreg with fe and vce(robust)? After the merge, I can't think of a theoretical reason to use state-level fixed effects and use "regress" with "i.ID i.year i.state" or something similar.


Any thoughts or helpful comments would be appreciated.