Abstract:

The issue of standardising data collection methods in panel research is made the more difficult and at the same time the more important by the fact that there are very few agreed upon principles in panel design. Therefore, if the current interest in making panel data comparable will result in the emergence of some basic guidelines for panel design, this would be beneficial to the whole field of panel research. In this paper, only a small, albeit important aspect of panel design will be discussed ~ namely that of panel composition.