SOEPMENU: A Menu-Driven Stata/SE Interface for Accessing the German Socio-Economic Panel

This presentation outlines a panel data retrieval program written for Stata/SE, which allows easier accessing of the German Socio-Economic Panel Data set. Using a drop-down menu system, the researcher selects variables from any and all available years of the panel. The data is automatically retrieved and merged to form a rectangular "wide file". The wide file is transposed to form a "long file", which can be directly used by the Stata panel estimators. The system implements modular data cleaning programs called plugins.