Importing by Dragging and Dropping in Eviews

EViews can read data directly by dragging and dropping a file (Microsoft Excel, HTML, CSV, etc.) into your EViews work area.

Let’s practice this important skill importing some macroeconomic data for four small island economies, The Bahamas, Jamaica, The Domincian Republic and Trinidad & Tobago. Download the file given in the link above and drag it into the EViews program window.

Notice that EViews automatically detects that the source data was a time series. Choose the pre-defined range called “Bahamas” to import the economic series relevant to The Bahamas and then click Next.

EViews then prompts you to enter information about each of the columns of data. From Header type, select “Names in first line” to make sure that the variable names will appear at the top of each column.

As a last step, EViews asks you how you would like to import the data; select “Create new page” and click Finish. Your workfile should now appear with a pagefile containing data on the Bahamas, as shown below:

You can see that the Range at the top of the workfile correctly shows the date format of the file. In particular, EViews shows that the range of the data is from 1980 to 2014 (allowing for a maximum of 35 observations) and that the current sample, namely 1980 to 2014, encompasses all of the data. Note that the pagefile just created will be called “Untitled”. You may give this page a new name by right-clicking on the page tab. For ease of reference in subsequent questions, please call this page “Bahamas.”

To confirm that you have imported the data correctly, open up bah_rgdp series (i.e., double click on the object). Click View→ Descriptive Statistics and Tests→Stats Table for summary statistics on this series. 

What was the average (mean) real GDP of the Bahamas over the sample period? Insert your answer to one decimal place (no rounding should be applied, e.g: 20.27 becomes 20.2 under this rule):

The mean real GDP for the Bahamas over the sample period was about 6.2 billion. If you answered correctly, you must have successfully imported the data!

EViews also allows the user to import data by simply copying data from an existing spreadsheet (in Microsoft Excel or other applications) and pasting it into an existing workfile. Using the steps in the chart below, work in EViews to discover the correct way to do so. Then place the steps below in the correct order.

• Highlight the series you wish to bring into EViews and select Edit → Copy.
• In your EViews workfile, click Quick → Empty Group (Edit Series).
• A blank spreadsheet opens up with dates on the side.
• Select the upper-left cell, right-click, and choose Paste.