The contribution of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research to Panel Data Research : the state of art in applied and methodical research

The paper is designed to set out the relative superiority of panel data in applied economic research and to provide an overview en empirical work using micro data from various panel surveys conducted by the IFO Institute in Munich, Germany. In the first section we provide a short overview on panel data sets collected by the ifo Institute and summarize the main advantages that arise out of the usage of panel data in applied research. Secion II briefly introduces and compares the different research approaches that have been developed for the analysis of panel data. For the sake of comparison, we also discuss research techniques applied to panel data sets that do not fully exploit the micro character of panel data. Section III, wich forms the main body of the report, surveys applied research that has been done in about the last two decades with micro data from the IFO business survey and the IFO innovation survey. Finally, we conclude the paper by setting out prospects for a more successful transmission of panel data research into applied economic analysis.