Panel data sources for economics research
For U.S. household-level work, start with the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), the longest-running nationally representative panel in the world. For cross-country comparisons, use the Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) or the LIS Cross-National Data Center rather than trying to harmonize raw national surveys yourself. For firm-level panels, the World Bank Enterprise Surveys are the most accessible starting point. Below we walk through each source, what it takes to get access, and what to check before you build a research design around it.
The short answer
Household panel research on the United States should start with PSID, which is free and open after registration. Cross-country household panel work should use a harmonized file — CNEF for a small set of well-matched OECD-style panels, or LIS for broader income and wealth coverage across roughly 50 countries — instead of stitching together national surveys by hand. Firm-level panel work should start with the World Bank Enterprise Surveys, which are free but only form a true panel in economies with repeated survey rounds. Confirm the wave coverage, the variable harmonization method and the access terms before committing a project to any one source.
U.S. household panels
Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)
The PSID, run by the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan, has followed the same families and their descendants since 1968, making it the longest-running nationally representative household panel survey in the world. It covers income, wealth, employment, health, education and family composition, with supplemental studies on topics such as childhood development and wellbeing. Data are free to use; you register on the PSID website, then either download prebuilt files in text, SAS, SPSS and Stata formats or use the PSID Data Center to build a custom extract by variable. Documentation, codebooks and user guides are hosted directly on the site. The main practical limitation is survey design complexity — variable names and family identifiers change across waves, so plan time for cleaning before analysis. Official site: psidonline.isr.umich.edu.
PSID through ICPSR
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) also distributes the PSID series and related supplemental studies through its standard archive interface, which is useful if your institution already has an ICPSR subscription workflow or you want PSID alongside other social science panels in one catalog. Access terms mirror ICPSR's usual free-with-registration model for public-use files. Official listing: icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/series/131.
Cross-country panels
Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF)
The CNEF is a consortium project, originally started at Cornell University and now managed at Ohio State University, that harmonizes yearly income and demographic variables across a fixed set of national household panels: PSID (United States), SOEP (Germany), HILDA (Australia), the UK panels descended from BHPS, the Swiss Household Panel, the Korea Labor and Income Panel Study, the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, and Canada's SLID. Because the underlying surveys use different questionnaires, CNEF's value is that someone has already done the equivalence work on income definitions, so cross-country regressions do not require you to reconcile survey methodology from scratch. Access to CNEF variables generally requires separate access to each underlying national panel, since CNEF distributes linking variables rather than replacing the source data. Official site: cnefdata.org.
LIS Cross-National Data Center (Luxembourg Income Study)
LIS is a nonprofit data center that harmonizes household income, wealth, employment and demographic microdata from roughly 50 high- and middle-income countries, with some countries covered for more than 30 years, into two databases: the Luxembourg Income Study Database (LIS) and the Luxembourg Wealth Study Database (LWS). Coverage is broader than CNEF's fixed panel set, including many countries outside the traditional OECD household-panel tradition. Access requires registering through the LIS Microdata User Registration Form; once approved, you query the data remotely through the LIS Data Access Research Tool (DART) rather than downloading raw files, and you must re-register annually. This remote-access model is a real constraint for teams that expect to work with raw microdata locally. Official site: lisdatacenter.org.
German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)
SOEP, based at DIW Berlin, is one of the household panels feeding into CNEF and is also usable on its own for detailed within-Germany longitudinal work spanning since 1984. It covers income, employment, health, life satisfaction and household composition. Individual SOEP files cannot be downloaded directly from the DIW website for data-protection reasons; access requires signing a data transfer contract with the SOEP Research Data Center, after which data are delivered on physical media or through personalized encrypted download. This is a slower access path than PSID and worth budgeting extra lead time for. Official site: diw.de — SOEP.
HILDA Survey (Australia)
The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey has run annually since 2001 and is designed and managed by the Melbourne Institute at the University of Melbourne, funded by the Australian Government. It is the Australian counterpart used in CNEF and covers family dynamics, economic wellbeing, subjective wellbeing and labor market outcomes. Access requires an application and a signed Confidentiality Deed Poll through the Department of Social Services process, restricted to approved researchers from government, academic and nonprofit organizations; approved data are distributed through the Australian Data Archive Dataverse platform. Official site: melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/hilda.
Understanding Society (UK Household Longitudinal Study)
Understanding Society, led by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, began in 2009 with roughly 39,800 households and built on the earlier British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), whose harmonized variables are the UK component of CNEF. It covers health, work, education, income, family and social attitudes over time. Access is through the UK Data Service under standard ESRC research-data terms, which for the core end-user license means free registration for bona fide research use; more sensitive linked or geographic variants require additional approval. Official site: understandingsociety.ac.uk.
Firm-level panels
World Bank Enterprise Surveys
The World Bank Enterprise Surveys are nationally representative firm-level surveys of business managers and owners across more than 150 economies, run roughly every three years per country by the Bank's Enterprise Analysis Unit. They cover access to finance, infrastructure, corruption, competition and firm performance. Where a country has been surveyed in multiple rounds, the Bank publishes panel datasets that stack the repeated firm-level records across years, which currently exist for most economies in Europe and Central Asia, some African economies, and a handful of South and East Asian economies — so panel coverage is real but uneven, and you should check whether your target country actually has multiple linked waves before assuming a panel exists. Registration is free and gives access to both individual country files and pooled panel datasets. Official site: enterprisesurveys.org/en/data.
Panel data sources side by side
| Source | Level | Coverage | Access |
|---|---|---|---|
| PSID | Household, U.S. | 1968–present, multigenerational | Free, register and download |
| PSID via ICPSR | Household, U.S. | Same as PSID, ICPSR catalog format | Free, register and download |
| CNEF | Household, 9 countries | Harmonized income variables, varies by country panel | Requires access to each underlying national panel |
| LIS / LWS | Household, ~50 countries | Income and wealth, up to 30+ years for some countries | Registration + annual renewal; remote query only |
| SOEP | Household, Germany | 1984–present | Data transfer contract required |
| HILDA | Household, Australia | 2001–present | Application + Confidentiality Deed Poll |
| Understanding Society | Household, UK | 2009–present, plus BHPS legacy 1991–2008 | Free via UK Data Service, standard license |
| World Bank Enterprise Surveys | Firm, 150+ economies | Panel waves in a subset of economies, mostly every 3 years | Free, register and download |
How to choose
If your question is about U.S. households only, start with PSID and avoid the added complexity of harmonized cross-national files. If you need a genuine cross-country comparison, decide first whether you need a small set of well-vetted panels with equivalent income definitions (CNEF) or the widest possible country coverage with remote-only access (LIS) — the two serve different tradeoffs between depth and breadth. If your unit of analysis is firms rather than households, go to the World Bank Enterprise Surveys first and confirm panel-wave availability for your target countries before designing a fixed-effects strategy around it, since not every country in the survey has repeated waves. For any source that requires a data transfer contract or a deed poll (SOEP, HILDA), build the approval lead time into your project timeline — it is commonly measured in weeks, not days.
FAQ
What is the best panel dataset for U.S. household economics research?
PSID is the standard choice. It has followed the same families and their descendants since 1968, is free after registration, and covers income, wealth, employment and health in one longitudinal file, with an ICPSR mirror available if you prefer that catalog.
How do I compare panel data across countries?
Use a harmonized file rather than combining raw national surveys yourself. CNEF harmonizes PSID, SOEP, HILDA, the UK panels and several others into equivalent income variables; LIS offers broader coverage across roughly 50 countries with remote-access querying through DART.
Where can I find firm-level panel data instead of household panel data?
The World Bank Enterprise Surveys publish panel datasets built from repeated firm-level survey waves, concentrated in Europe and Central Asia, parts of Africa, and some South and East Asian economies. Registration is free, but confirm your target country has multiple linked waves before assuming panel coverage exists.
Still not sure which panel fits your research design?
If you are choosing between these sources, or you need to confirm that a specific country and time range actually has usable panel waves before you commit, you can give us your research question and required conditions, and we run a data availability assessment (3 free credits on sign-up) — searching these sources for real and judging matches and gaps against each requirement. Even when no perfectly fitting panel is found, we present the search directions, approximate sources and item-by-item findings honestly for your reference.
New accounts get 3 free searches; every result comes with verifiable source links.