Route qualitative information through the regression system.

Financial categories alter levels, slopes, seasons, and regimes. Encode them without redundancy, interpret every comparison against its reference, and test group differences without crossing the causal boundary.

MISSION OBJECTIVES

Encode binary and multi-category explanatory variables with an explicit reference group.
Interpret intercept shifts and group-specific slopes.
Use interactions, contrasts, and joint tests for conditional group comparisons.
Model seasonal effects and known structural breaks.
Run equivalent EViews and Stata workflows and report their limits.