Panel Data
Panel data, also known as longitudinal data, is a dataset that contains observations of multiple entities (e.g., individuals, companies, countries) over multiple time periods. It combines cross-sectional and time-series dimensions, allowing for the analysis of both between-entity differences and within-entity changes over time. This structure is widely used in economics, social sciences, and business analytics to study dynamic relationships and control for unobserved heterogeneity.
Developers should learn about panel data when working on data-intensive applications in fields like econometrics, finance, or social research, where understanding trends and causal effects over time is crucial. It is essential for building models that account for individual-specific effects, such as in A/B testing with repeated measurements, customer behavior analysis, or policy impact studies, enabling more robust statistical inferences than cross-sectional data alone.