Re: [Gretl-users] issue defining a panel with sub-sample data

On Tue, 1 Oct 2013, Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti wrote: >> This whole thing needs some more investigation. I guess for consistency we >> should either scrap the --balanced option or reactivate the balancing mode >> that's now disabled. Whenever I try to think this issue through it makes >> my head hurt, but I'll see what I can do... > > Personal opinion: if a panel structure is in force, --balanced should be > implicit in smpl. Rationale: a panel dataset is a panel dataset. It simply > can't stop being a panel dataset because you are sub-sampling it. If you > really want it to be interpreted differently, then you have setobs for > that. I hear you, but not all users have that expectation. At one time what the --balanced option does was the default, but I changed that (a long time ago now) after hearing from some users that they found the effect surprising, even disconcerting ("I thought I'd got rid of those rows, but there they still are, just with NAs substituted").