Dear R users, I have more of a statistical/econometric question than straight R one. I have a data set with the discrete hazard rate of small firms survival on 400 counties over a period of 9 years. This data was generated using census information from the VAT registration number of each one of these business. I would like to analyze the effect of regional factors (deprivation index, real wages, average schooling, population density, etc) on the variation of these hazard rates across counties over time. I've done a search in the economic literature on firm survival and regional economics, but I could not find any reference that would resemble the type of data or the problem that I would like to explore. I would like to know if anyone in the list has any suggestion of references that I might have missed in economics, or if people on any other fields know of any references of people looking at any data that might resemble this one (I don't know, but maybe epidemiology might have regional level data that might look at similar issues). Of course I would also like to know which R commands could assist me on this analysis. Any suggestions will be much appreciated. All the very best, JP County Region time 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 a South 6 months 95.0 95.1 95.5 95.7 96.8 96.8 96.9 95.9 98.0 a South 12 months 87.1 87.1 89.7 89.6 92.4 91.7 92.6 90.2 93.9 a South 18 months 79.5 79.8 83.3 83.0 86.4 86.7 85.8 84.7 a South 24 months 73.3 73.1 77.8 78.0 80.6 81.0 79.6 79.2 a South 30 months 68.0 67.3 72.8 72.3 75.8 75.1 74.1 a South 36 months 63.7 62.9 69.0 67.1 70.8 68.7 68.5 a South 42 months 59.3 59.1 65.4 62.6 65.8 64.2 a South 48 months 56.1 56.2 61.6 59.1 61.2 59.6 b South 6 months 94.2 96.0 96.3 96.7 96.5 97.0 97.0 96.1 97.1 b South 12 months 87.2 89.1 90.6 90.5 91.4 91.8 92.1 91.3 92.8 b South 18 months 79.9 82.0 84.2 84.5 85.8 85.8 86.3 86.2 b South 24 months 73.9 75.9 78.1 79.0 80.5 79.8 80.8 80.4 b South 30 months 68.2 70.0 73.2 74.2 75.6 74.3 75.8 b South 36 months 64.0 65.4 69.0 70.3 70.4 69.6 71.0 b South 42 months 60.2 60.8 65.4 66.0 66.1 64.9 b South 48 months 56.6 57.5 62.0 61.7 61.7 61.1 c South 6 months 93.2 94.0 94.6 95.6 95.7 95.8 95.9 96.6 97.2 c South 12 months 84.5 85.8 87.8 89.1 89.6 89.8 90.8 91.6 92.7 c South 18 months 77.2 78.9 80.7 83.3 84.1 83.8 84.1 86.7 c South 24 months 69.8 72.8 75.1 77.2 78.1 78.0 78.7 80.7 c South 30 months 63.8 66.3 69.3 71.9 72.9 73.0 73.3 c South 36 months 59.4 61.7 65.3 67.8 68.5 68.2 68.3 c South 42 months 55.8 57.3 60.9 63.7 64.0 63.6 c South 48 months 52.4 53.7 57.6 60.3 59.9 59.0