Balance a Panel Data Set

This function drops observations from data.frame that are not part of balanced panel data set. `data` is copied before dropping any rows, so the object passed in is left unmodified; see set_balanced_panel for an in-place alternative that avoids copying large inputs.

Usage

make_balanced_panel(data, idname, tname)

Arguments

data

data.frame (or data.table) used in function

idname

unique id

tname

time period name

Value

a balanced panel, with the same class (`data.frame` or `data.table`) as `data`

Examples

id <- rep(seq(1, 100), each = 2) # individual ids for setting up a two period panel
t <- rep(seq(1, 2), 100) # time periods
y <- rnorm(200) # outcomes
dta <- data.frame(id = id, t = t, y = y) # make into data frame
dta <- dta[-7, ] # drop the 7th row from the dataset (which creates an unbalanced panel)
dta <- make_balanced_panel(dta, idname = "id", tname = "t")