Which statement best describes panel data?

• A. It involves repeated observations of the same individuals over time, enabling analysis of attitude change and causal inferences.
• B. It uses a cross-sectional snapshot of the population.
• C. It aggregates data from multiple time points but with different individuals.
• D. It relies exclusively on qualitative interviews.

Answer: (A)

Panel data involve observations on the same individuals across multiple time points. This setup lets researchers see how attitudes change within the same people and strengthens causal inferences by controlling for unobserved, time-invariant differences between individuals. A cross-sectional snapshot only captures one moment in time, so it can’t track individual change. Data collected at several time points but with different people are repeated cross-sections, not true panel data, which means you can’t observe the same person’s trajectory. And relying exclusively on qualitative interviews describes a data type rather than the longitudinal tracking that characterizes panel data.