From Statistical Nuisances to Serious Modeling: Changing How We Think About the Analysis of Time-Series—Cross-Section Data

Abstract

This special issue of Political Analysis hopefully marks a watershed in how we as a discipline think about modeling time-series—cross-section (TSCS) data. By that I mean moving beyond thinking of TSCS data as only presenting a series of technical estimation problems that are seen as violations of the Gauss-Markov assumptions, problems that can be treated by better estimation methods. The articles in this special issue point to ways of moving forward in thinking of TSCS data as providing opportunities to model intrinsic and important features of the data (while also paying attention to the various statistical issues).