Dear All,

I am using Amelia to fill in some gaps in national accounts data (and similar panels of data); as a result of the structure of my panel, there is no 'cs' parameter -- just 'ts'.

I intend to use the EM algorithim to complete my panel, and then to extract factors via PCA -- as a reuslt i have two related questions.

1/ I would like to use the tscsPlot command (or similar) to plot the observed values and the imputations (mean + 95% confidence bands) -- is this possible?

2/ What's the best way to use the output from the imputations to generate the factors in the PCA? I have considered two methods, but am unsure which is best (most valid) --

1/ fill the gaps in the panel with the the mean of the imputations and use the single data set to extract the eigenvales and eigenvectors of the assocaited covariance matrix - and then use these weights and the 'mean-filled in' data set to generate the factors.

2/ stack the imputation panels and use the stacked panel to generate the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the associated covariance matrix - and then use the mean values from the imputation runs to fill the gaps in my original panel, and the weights from the stacked panel?

thanks and best regards

Matt Johnson