Econometrics

The twenty-eighth entry is os dados em painel, and the English word behind it began as a scrap of cloth. « A panel » came through Old French panel from the Latin pannus, a piece of cloth, and in English law it named the slip of parchment on which the sheriff wrote the names of the men summoned to a jury. First the list was the panel; then the men on the list were the panel; and from that jury box the word spread to every standing group asked for an opinion — a panel of experts, a panel of judges, a panel discussion, and at last the panel of households a survey keeps and questions again. That last stop is the one this entry needs: panel data are what comes back when the same firms are followed year after year, and the name promises the identity of the respondents rather than the size of the sample. Portuguese received the same word for the flat board — o painel de instrumentos, o painel solar — and took the group sense back from English much later.