RESEARCH DISCIPLINE
Statistical Analysis for Economics Research
Consulting for Panel & Policy Studies
Economics research statistical analysis for country and household panels, macroeconomic series, survey microdata and field experiments, with the identification strategy stated and the results delivered with the data-cleaning and estimation code that journals now expect.
No Commitment Required
Strictly Confidential
In-House PhD-Level Statisticians
Fixed Project Fee
Same-Day Response
Statistical Analysis for Economics Research
Economics research statistical analysis is the statistical design, estimation and reporting of studies of households, firms, regions and countries, usually from survey microdata, administrative records, country-year panels and macroeconomic series. Observations repeat over time and cluster within units, errors in neighboring periods and similar units are correlated, and the quantity of interest is often the causal effect of a policy or shock that regressors alone do not identify, so an analysis that treats rows as independent and adds controls until a coefficient stabilizes gives intervals that are too narrow and an effect that is not identified. OnlineSPSS, a specialist statistical consultancy for academic, clinical and professional research, provides econometrics consulting through in-house PhD-level statisticians, who settle the level of dependence, the identification strategy and the estimand with you before any model is estimated.
WHEN TO ENGAGE
Statistical Support at Different Stages of Economics Research
Economists tend to contact us when an empirical strategy has to be fixed in writing, when a panel is ready to estimate or when a referee's report arrives.
Specifying an Empirical Strategy You are planning a paper or thesis chapter and need the estimand, the source of identifying variation, the panel structure and the main specification fixed before anything is estimated.
Estimating on Panel or Series Data Your country-year, household-wave or macroeconomic dataset is assembled, and the choice of effects, dynamics and clustering level now decides what the estimates can show.
Preparing a Working Paper Estimates are ready for a working paper or journal submission and need tables with intervals, robustness checks and the cleaning and estimation code organized for a replication package.
Answering a Referee Report A referee or discussant has questioned the identifying assumptions, the clustering or a specification choice, and the reply needs additional estimates that back it.
RESEARCH CONTEXT
Research Designs and Data We Work With in Economics Research
Economic data come as country panels, household waves, macroeconomic series and experiments, and the structure of each decides what panel data econometrics and its alternatives can show.
01
Country-Year Panels
Macro and institutional variables for a limited number of countries over many years, where shocks are shared and adjacent years are related.
02
Household and Individual Panels
Survey microdata followed across waves, as in labor and consumption studies, with attrition and changing household composition.
03
Macroeconomic Time Series
Quarterly or monthly series for output, prices, interest rates or trade, which trend, show seasonality and can break after a policy change.
04
Policy and Natural Experiments
Tax changes, laws or eligibility rules that touch some units and not others, observed before and after and often on different dates.
05
Linked Administrative and Survey Files
Tax, wage or registry records merged with surveys through identifiers, where matches are incomplete and income is measured with error.
06
Field and Laboratory Experiments
Randomized treatments in the lab or the field, with decisions repeated by each participant and outcomes recorded over several rounds.
METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Statistical Issues We Consider in Economics Research
These checks come first in an empirical economics project, because the source of identifying variation can matter more than the choice of estimator.
Source of Identifying Variation What varies, and why, is stated before a coefficient is read as causal: an instrument, a cutoff or a policy date, with its assumptions. More controls do not substitute for it.
Level of Clustering Errors are correlated within countries, regions or households, so standard errors are clustered where treatment varies or shocks are shared. With few clusters, small-sample or bootstrap corrections are used.
Trending Series and Spurious Fits Regressing one trending series on another can show a relationship that is not there. Stationarity, cointegration and the dynamics are examined before levels or changes are modeled.
Fixed or Random Effects The choice follows what the unit effects are assumed to correlate with, not a single test result. Fixed effects remove differences between units that do not change, and the variables that do not change with them.
Error in Income and Matches Reported income is noisy, linked files match incompletely and attrition differs between households. How each affects the estimate is examined, with bounds or sensitivity analysis where it cannot be removed.
Scripted Data Cleaning Every step from the raw files to the final table is scripted, since journals expect code and data documentation, and each cleaning decision is recorded so that it can be varied in robustness checks.
STATISTICAL METHODS
Methods Selected for the Research Question and Study Design
Each method family is chosen for the outcome and the data structure of your study, and the line under each title explains why it is used in economic data analysis.
Longitudinal & Multilevel Analysis
Country-year and household-wave data need unit and period effects with clustered errors, policy dates support a comparison over time, and macro series start from stationarity.
Clinical, Survival & Epidemiological
Where a shock or rule was not allocated at random, an instrument, a cutoff or a series interrupted on a known date identifies an effect, and each carries assumptions to defend.
Regression & Predictive Modeling
Wage, price and consumption outcomes are modeled by regression with robust or clustered errors, and binary choices and event counts such as patents by models for their own scale.
Bayesian & Computational Methods
Few countries or regions make asymptotic intervals unreliable, so resampling is used, and missing income answers are imputed under stated assumptions with complete-case results as a check.
Comparative & Hypothesis Testing
Experimental treatments are compared on the outcome with the difference and its interval, covariates measured before randomization improve precision, and rank tests serve small laboratory samples.
Evidence Synthesis & Meta-Research
Estimates of one elasticity or return from many studies are pooled by meta-regression, with heterogeneity and publication bias examined and the reporting guidelines of the field followed.
DELIVERABLES
Statistical Outputs Prepared for Your Research
The outputs follow the structure of an empirical economics project, from the review of the panel identifiers to the code that regenerates every reported table.
Data & Study Review The unit and time identifiers, variable definitions and units, the sources of any merged files and the pattern of missing observations are reviewed before anything is estimated.
Statistical Analysis The agreed fixed-effects, dynamic, instrumental-variable, difference-in-differences or time series models, with stationarity and clustering checks and the planned robustness analyses.
Effect Estimates & Uncertainty Coefficients and marginal effects in the units of the outcome, with confidence intervals from clustered or robust standard errors and first-stage statistics for instrumented models.
Tables & Figures Regression tables in journal layout with alternative specifications in adjacent columns, event-study and impulse-response figures, and summary statistics for the estimation sample.
Statistical Interpretation Each estimate is explained in economic terms with its magnitude and the identifying assumptions behind it, and results without an identification strategy are worded as associations.
Analysis Files Stata do-files, R or Python scripts, with a documented path from the raw data to every table, so that a replication package can be assembled according to the agreed scope.
REPORTING
Reporting Economics Research
No checklist covers empirical economics, so the replication policy and referee norms of your target journal set the standard.
Journals of the American Economic Association require a replication package under the AEA Data and Code Availability Policy, and many other journals ask for the same, so the cleaning and estimation code is organized to that standard from the start, with a README written to the Social Science Data Editors template. A randomized field experiment is reported against its registration, for example in the AEA RCT Registry, and against its pre-analysis plan where one was filed, and a meta-regression of published estimates follows the MAER-Net reporting guidelines. Estimates appear in the units of the outcome with confidence intervals, specifications are shown side by side, and the construction of the estimation sample is described step by step, so that a referee can see which choices drive a result.
ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE
How the Analysis May Look in Practice
An illustration of how a question about a country panel moves from a dataset to a result whose identifying assumptions are stated.
ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE · TRADE AND GROWTH ECONOMICS RESEARCH · UNITED STATES
An economics research group wanted to know whether greater trade openness was associated with faster economic growth, using an annual panel of countries.
Growth depends on shocks that hit many countries in the same year, and openness itself responds to growth, so a pooled regression could mistake one for the other. Before any estimate was examined, we set the outcome as the annual growth rate, not the level of output, which trends, and fixed the main specification with country and year effects. Standard errors were clustered by country, and because the number of countries was limited, the intervals were checked with a wild cluster bootstrap. Because country effects absorb any fixed geographic instrument, an instrument that varies over time, built from geography and changing transport costs, was examined as a robustness analysis with its first-stage strength reported, and the main result was worded as an association because the exclusion restriction could not be verified.
Outcome: The group received the openness coefficient with its 95% confidence interval, the instrumented estimate with first-stage statistics, alternative lag and sample specifications, the cleaning and estimation code organized for a replication package and a methods paragraph.
This example does not describe a real client or project. We never share details of actual client work, in line with the confidentiality we promise every researcher. This illustrative example is included to show the type, scope, and standard of work involved in this kind of analysis.
RESEARCHER VOICE
What Researchers Say
Feedback from an economist on support that understood the field, on clustered data not treated as independent rows and on reporting framed around how studies are reviewed.
“We needed statistical support from someone who understood Economics, not just someone who could run software. The main issue in our data was the clustered structure of the data rather than treating every row as independent. The analysis and reporting were framed around the way studies in our field are actually designed and reviewed, which made a noticeable difference.”
HOW WE ASSESS YOUR PROJECT
We Review Your Actual Research
Your assessment is based on a review of your actual research materials and analytical requirements, not a generic project category.
You Submit Your Project Details
Share whatever is available at the current stage, such as the research aim, protocol or proposal, dataset, variable list, manuscript or statistical requirements.
We Review Your Research and Define the Scope
Your statistically trained Research Coordinator reviews the materials to understand the study design, research questions, data structure, analytical requirements and expected deliverables. If clarification is needed, additional documents or information can be requested before the assessment is finalized.
Your Analysis Is Completed and Delivered
Once the scope and fixed project fee are agreed, the in-house statistician completes the work and the Research Coordinator remains the communication point through delivery, with the analysis, deliverables and timeline as agreed.
SOFTWARE
Statistical Software for Economics Research
Economic analyses are run in the package your department or coauthors already use, with syntax or scripts provided where applicable.
Statistical Support Within Your Research OnlineSPSS provides the agreed methodological, analytical, and statistical reporting support. The researcher or research team retains the scientific question, substantive interpretation, conclusions, and overall responsibility for the research.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Questions About Statistical Analysis for Economics Research
Short answers to what economists ask before sharing a project, from method choice and spurious regressions to replication code, review and confidentiality.
Which statistical methods are used in economics research?
Economics research most often uses panel data models with unit and time effects, instrumental-variable, difference-in-differences and discontinuity designs for causal questions, and the time series analysis economics papers rely on for macroeconomic series, with regression for wage, price and consumption outcomes. The choice follows how the data were generated and which variation identifies the effect. Our Statistical Methods pages describe each family.
Should my panel use fixed effects or random effects?
The choice rests on whether the unit effects are plausibly correlated with your regressors, not on a single test. Fixed effects allow that correlation and remove everything that does not vary within a unit, so they cannot estimate a time-invariant variable such as distance to a market. Random effects are more efficient when the effects are uncorrelated with the regressors. We compare the estimates, explain what each can and cannot answer, and report the specification the question needs.
Can I regress one macroeconomic series on another?
Not by default. When both series trend, the regression can show a strong relationship that reflects only the trends, and the usual standard errors do not apply. We examine stationarity first and then model changes, a cointegrating relationship or a dynamic model, depending on the evidence, so the relationship reported is one the data can support.
Can you prepare code and documentation for a journal's replication requirement?
Yes. The analysis is delivered as scripts that run from the raw data you provide to each reported table, with the cleaning decisions documented, and a README can be prepared to the template that journals commonly request. What can be deposited depends on your data license and the journal’s policy, which you remain responsible for.
How is confidential survey or administrative data handled?
Survey microdata, administrative files and project details are handled confidentially, and project information is not published. An NDA is available where required and can be arranged before sensitive materials are shared. Read more about confidentiality and data security.
What happens when I request an assessment, and how long does it take?
You send your research question, the data structure and any specification or draft you have. A statistically trained Research Coordinator reviews them and responds the same day, and the analysis, deliverables, timeline and one fixed project fee are confirmed before work begins, so the timeline follows from the agreed scope.
Still have a question? Find more answers in our full FAQ.
NEXT STEP
Discuss Your
Economics Research With Us
Share your research question, the panel or series you have and your current specification, even if only a draft exists. We review how the effect is identified and confirm the approach before work begins.
No Commitment Required
Strictly Confidential
Fixed Project Fee
In-House PhD-Level Statisticians
Same-Day Response
Serving Researchers Since 2014