putting data into stata and using years as dummy variables

[Anya hewertson]

I am relatively new to stata however i have collected data from the LCF survey on the years 2007-2012, each year contains data on the same variables. I have combined the data for all the years into one using the "append" command within stata, my first question is 1) Does this now make my data panel data or cross sectional data?

Secondly, 2) I am hoping to use the different years as dummy variables with 2007 being the base year, and i was wondering how to do this?

[Carlo Lazzaro]

Anya:
1) Stata knows exactly what you ask it to know: to set your data as panel, see -help xtset-;
2) creating catgorical variables and interactions with -fvvarlist- is really easy; in your case, the time categorical variable should be:

i.year