This question is similar to many previous posts, but not exactly (at least from my understanding, which is limited i R-programming). I have a dataset with k countries over N years. For each country I have K variables (all being the same for all k countries).
The dataset is a wide panel that looks approximately like this:
Country Variable Year1 Year2 ... YearN
C1 V1 V1_C1_Y1 V1_C1_Y2 V1_C1_YN
C1 V2 V2_C1_Y1 V2_C1_Y2 V2_C1_YN
C1 V3 V3_C1_Y1 V3_C1_Y2 V3_C1_YN
.
.
.
C1 VK VK_C1_Y1 VK_C1_Y2 VK_C1_YN
C2 V1 V1_C2_Y1 V1_C2_Y2 V1_C2_YN
C2 V2 V2_C2_Y1 V2_C2_Y2 V2_C2_YN
.
.
.
C2 VK VK_C2_Y1 VK_C2_Y2 VK_C2_YN
C3 V1 V1_C3_Y1 V1_C3_Y2 V1_C3_YN
.
.
Ck V1 V1_Ck_Y1 V1_Ck_Y2 V1_Ck_YN
.
.
.
Ck VK VK_Ck_Y1 VK_Ck_Y2 VK_Ck_YN
The country names are given as actual names: Algeria, Argentina, ..., Zimbabwe. The variables are Budget balance, GDP, ... with a total of K variables.
The problem is, I want the dataset to be a long panel:
Country Year Variable1 Variable2 . . . . VariableK
C1 Y1 V1_C1_Y1 V2_C1_Y1 VK_C1_Y1
.
.
C1 YN V1_C1_YN V2_C1_YN VK_C1_YN
C2 Y1 V1_C2_Y1 V2_C2_Y1 VK_C2_Y1
.
.
C2 YN V1_C2_YN V2_C2_YN VK_C2_YN
.
.
Ck Y1 V1_Ck_Y1 V2_Ck_Y1 VK_Ck_Y1
.
.
Ck YN V1_Ck_YN V2_Ck_YN VK_Ck_YN
I don't understand how to reshape the dataset to the long format.
