INTRODUCTION, DATA ENTRY AND

MANIPULATIOAN USING E-VIEWS

By
Dr. Ayano D. A.

1
 SESSION OBJECTIVES
At the end of this session, participants will be
able to:
describe the features of E-views package;

enter data into E-views; and

manipulate data using E-views.

 INTRODUCTION
 Statistical procedures are often rigorous,
involving complex formulas, overwhelming
tables, intensive arithmetic processes and a
host of assumptions.

 The advent of intelligent computer software

able to automate statistical processes has
turned a new leaf in research.
 A great deal of the statistical rigor has been
successfully transferred to the computer.
 INTRODUCTION…
 E-views (Econometrics views) is one of such software
that has proven to be very reliable.
 The E-views version for Microsoft Windows make use of
greatly appealing graphic interfaces making it much
more user friendly.

 Eviews is currently in its 12th version, but we will be

using Eviews 10 mainly in these sessions.
 INTRODUCTION…
• The specific objective of the session is to
introduce us to the uses and nature of the
package, how it operates and how it can be
applied, hence, the session has two parts.
• The first part discusses the features of E-Views
(work file basics), while the second part provides
insight into the processes and options of data
entry and data manipulation.

5
WORKFILE BASICS

6
 THE E-VIEWS SCREEN
Upon starting E-views, you will be
presented with the main screen, which
consists of the title bar, the main menu,
the command window, the middle work
area and the lower status bar.
 Work
Area

Main Status Command

Menu Line or Window 8
Bar
 The Main Menu
File: Basic file operations.
Edit: Basic editing operations
Object: Commands for creating and
manipulating E-views objects
View: Viewing options
Proc: Stands for Procedures. Importing
and exporting data; sample options
• Quick: Shortcuts to many E-views
operations
 The Main Menu…
• Options: commands for specifying how Eviews
works and appears
• Add-ins: add-ins are external programs that
can be used to provide special functionality in
Eviews
• Window: commands for arranging and
controlling displayed windows
• Help:provides help and documentation on
Eviews usage
 The Work Area
 The area in the middle of the window is the work
area where E-views display the various object
windows that it creates.

 Think of these windows as similar to the sheets of

paper you might place on your desk as you work.

 The windows will overlap each other with the

foremost window being in focus or active. Only
the active window has a darkened title bar.
 CONTD.
 When a window is partly covered, you can bring it
to the top by clicking on its title bar or on a visible
portion of the window.

 You can also cycle through the displayed windows

by pressing the CTRL - F6 or CTRL-TAB keys.

 Alternatively, you may directly select a window by

clicking on the window menu item, and select a
desired name.
 CONTD.
• You can move a window by clicking on its
title bar and dragging the window to a
new location.

• You can change the size of a window by

clicking at the lower right corner and
dragging the corner to a new location.
 The Status Line
 The status line is divided into several sections. The
left section will sometimes contain status
messages sent to you by E-views, which you can
clear by clicking on the box at the far left of the
status line.

 The next section shows the default directory

where E-views is installed.

 The last two sections display the names of the

default database and work file.
 Help System
 E-Views being a window-based software is very user
friendly. But in case of operational problems or
difficulties, the help system is always handy to
provide useful assistance.

 As a matter of fact, a large portion of E-views

documents may be called up by using the help
system.

 To access the E-views help, simply go to the main

menu and select HELP. The on-line manual is fully
searchable and hypertext linked.
 The Work File
 To do any work in E-views, you must
create or load a work file.

 Work file organize and contain the

objects that you will use in your analysis.

 To create a new work file, use the

File/New/Workfile menu.
17
This brings up a dialog box where you describe the type of
data you will be working with

18
 CONTD.
 As you can see from the dialog box, E-views
allow you to work with time series data
(dated – regular frequency), cross-sectional
data (undated/unstructured) as well as
balanced panel data .

 For the time series data, you must specify the

frequency of the data e.g. annual, quarterly,
monthly etc., and the starting and ending
dates of the desired sample.
 Dated (Regular Frequency) Specifications
Frequency Older versions Newer versions
Annual 1980 1990 1980 1990
Semi-annual 1980:2 1990:1 1980S2 1990S1
Quarterly 1980:1 1990:4 1980Q1 1990Q4
Monthly 1980:2 1990:6 1980M2 1990M6
Bi-monthly 01:01:2021 01/01/2021
04:16:2021 04/16/2021
Forthnightly Mm:dd:yyyy Mm/dd/yyyy
Mm:dd:yyyy Mm/dd/yyyy
All others Mm:dd:yyyy Mm/dd/yyyy
Mm:dd:yyyy Mm/dd/yyyy
 CONT’D.
• For cross-sectional data you simply specify the
maximum number of observations.
 CONTD.
• Note that for those with MM/DD/YYYY format,
3/10/1998 is March 10, 1998 or the week starting that
day. You may also use Options/General Options and
select Date Representations in the main menu to switch
to European notation where 3/10/98 means 3 October
1998.

• Once you indicate the nature of the data to be used and

the start date and end dates (for dated data series), and
the first observation to the maximum observation for
the undated data series, you then click on OK or press
ENTER. A work file as shown below will appear:
23
 CONTD.
 The work file you have just opened is empty
except for two default objects labeled c and
resid. These are the constant term and the
error term usually associated with modeling.

 The range of the work file gives the starting

and ending dates of the entire set of the data.
 The sample range of the work file gives the
sample that is relevant for analysis.
 CONT’D.
• By default, the sample is set to the work file
range. You may if you wish, effect a change in
the sample period either by:
• typing the sample command, smpl in the
command box
• OR
• clicking on the Sample button in the workfile
window
 CONTD.
• From the adjoining sample box
you then effect the change(s) you
wish and click OK, and your
change(s) is/are accordingly
made.

26
Type smpl in command box
OR
Click the Sample button

Specify the sample start and

end period.
 Saving the Work-file
 Up till now your work-file remains untitled as you
can see from the window work-file dialog box.

 You can title and save you work-file by either

clicking on the (Save) button on the work-file
toolbar or by choosing File/save from the main
menu.

 Whichever way you choose, the dialog box below

will be displayed.
29
 CONTD.
• Once you save a work file; all of
the objects currently named in
the work file will be saved.
 Data Entry
• Data can be entered manually or brought from
another source.
• There are three different ways of entering
data.
– You can type the data from the keyboard.
– Import data from an external source.
– Copy and paste data from both internal and
external source.
 Importing Data
 E-views can easily import ASCII text data, Excel.xls data and
other file formats.

 The data can be organized in rows or columns and the

names of series can be in the files as long as they precede
the data series.
 In much older versions, you would need to create a workfile
before you can import data, but this is not necessary in newer
versions. In newer versions, you can import the data and then
save it as a workfile

 The E-views commands and procedures to import data are:

Step 1 (older versions): Click File/New/Work File

33
Step 2: Choose the right frequency for your data (for example, Annual) and input
the start date and end date (in the case 1980 and 2000) and click OK

34
Step 3: You can now import data from an external source by clicking
File/Import and choosing the Import from File Option.
(Note: this can be step 1 in newer versions)

35
Alternatively, step 3 can be carried out using the following
commands from the Work file buttons (if you already have a
workfile created) Proc/Import/Import from File:

36
Step 4: At this stage you browse to and select the file from which you want to
import Data from and then click open button. This is illustrated below

37
 CONTD.
• Step 5: Then identify the data location and
format, and select or input the correct options
for your data as follows.
– Cell range (Predefined or Custom cell range and
select the relevant Sheet in the Excel file)
– Column Headers (specify Number of header lines
and Type)
– Text representing NA
– Column Info (Name, Description and Data Type)
– Import Method and Options
– Data Structure
Import Step 1: Select Relevant Sheet in Excel file
and Data Range in Sheet, click Next

Note: Predefined
range allows
EViews to search
for contiguous
cells with data in
the external file
and use this as
the range of cells
to import. If this
is not the desired
range, Custom
range can be used
to manually
specify the
desired cell range.
Import Step 2: Indicate Number of header
lines (rows) and type of header, click Next

Note: Datasets may

contain names,
descriptions and
dates of the data
series, known as
headers.
In this step, choose
the number of lines
(rows) in the
external data file
that contain
headers and
specify the type of
header in the row
(Name, Description
or Year)
Import Step 3: Specify text representing NA and
Column Info, click Next or Finish

Note: If the data in your Excel

file has special coding for
missing values, you can set the
Text representing NA box to
whatever value your data uses.
EViews automatically analyses
the data in each column of
your external file to decide
whether it contains numbers,
characters or dates. If you want
to manually specify the type of
data in a column, select the
column at the bottom panel
and select the Data type
manually in the top right
panel,
Step 4: Import Method and Data Structure,
click Finish
Note: In most
cases, there is no
need to change
any options here
except you want
to rename series
before importing
the data.
You can also
change the
structure of the
imported data at
this stage
After selecting all the relevant options, your data is imported
into Eviews, with each variable added as a workfile series object.
To view the data for a single variable, double click on its series
object
To view the data for a group of series, select the series
individually and double click on any of them, and select
Open Group
 Entering Data from the Keyboard
• As an alternative to importing data, data can
also be entered directly into a work file from
the keyboard.

• To do so, you first need to create a series

object and then enter the data from that
object using the E-views editor.
 CONT’D.
• The following steps are often involved.
Step 1: File/New/Work file

Step 2: Choose the right frequency and input start

date and end date and click Ok (you will recall that
these two steps are also basic to the data
importation operations previously considered).

Step 3: Select Objects/New object from the main

menu as:
By clicking on the ENTER button the New Object dialog Box is
displayed 47
48
 CONTD.
• Once you have this box you select the
type of object you want created and
give a title to them and click on ENTER.

• The empty series bearing the indicated

title will be added to the work file as
below:
50
 CONTD.
• Step 4: To enter data into the series do the
following:

• Double click on the GDP to open the

spreadsheet view (you will see sequence of
NA’s).

• Click [ Edit+/-] to activate edit mode

• Click on the first data cell.

• Enter the data for that cell and press [Enter]

52
 CONTD.
 When you have finished entering the data, click
[Edit+/-] to deactivate edit mode to prevent
accidentally editing of the data and then click the
close box.

 Alternatively to step 3 above, type DATA into the

command area and press ENTER.

 A spreadsheet consisting many, in fact unlimited

columns will be displayed and with which you can
quickly enter in as many variables names as you
desire. See the illustration below.
54
 Copy and Paste Approach
 An addition to your data entry options is the
copy and paste approach or process.

 As the name implies the approach involves

copying from wherever and whatever the
package the information or the data set you
want are located and go to paste them at
the desired location or work file in a given
package or software.
 CONTD.
 Doing this, however, requires being very careful and
mindful of the order or manner in which the data to
be copied and pasted appear in their original place.

 It is therefore advised that you take a look at the

order of arrangement of the data set and better still
write them down first and ensure that these
variables names are arranged sequentially or
orderly prior to copying and pasting them.

 Otherwise, there will be a mix up of variables

names and values.
 CONT’D.
• Resizing Workfiles:
– To change the size of your workfile, select
Proc/Structure / Resize Current Page… and enter
the beginning and ending observation of the
workfile in the dialog.
 CONT’D.
• Editing a series:
– Open the spreadsheet view of the series.
– Next, make certain that the spreadsheet window is
in edit mode
– use the Edit +/– button on the toolbar to toggle
between edit mode and protected mode
– To change the value for an observation, select the
cell, type in the value, and press ENTER
– When you have finished editing, click on Edit +/– to
turn off edit mode.
 Data Manipulation
• New data sets or variables can be generated
from the set of initial data sets or variables.
• To do this, you choose GENR from the work
file main menu and the Genr dialog box shown
below will be displayed.
 CONT’D.
 You now type in the formula for generating the new
series or variable from the old series or variable in
the enter equation space in the dialog box and click
OK.

 For example, supposing from our enter data set we

want to generate the growth rate of the GDP which
we call GRGDP, we will type the formula as this:
GRGDP = (GDP-GDP(-1))/GDP(-1))* 100 and then
click OK:
 Exercise
• Compute the following:
– Capex as % of GDP
– TotExp as % of GDP
– Net Export (Exports – Imports)

61
 CONT’D.
 This process will have to be repeated for as many
times as new sets of series are to be generated.

 In general, the main requirement for data

transformation is to determine what transformation
is to be done and the appropriate formula or
expression for doing it.

 Once this is done, there is no limit the extent of

data transformation that can be carried out.
 Conclusion
• Let us think of various scenarios and try
to play around with them using E-views.

• The best way to learn this stuff is to play

with it.

Have fun!