Abstract
This paper presents the contribution of human resource panel datasets to academic research by introducing the U.S. experience withthe NLS data,, and discussing the prospect of building such datasets in Taiwan. Using Brown (1980) as an example, this study il-lustrates the unique feature of panel data that leads to in-depthdevelopments in labor economics. The value of panel data in ap-plied research is shown by progress in research on "female labor supply" and "job search". These two areas are closely related tomajor labor market issues such as Taiwan's labor shortage and highunemployment rate for the highly educated. Dramatic progress inresearch in these areas is expected if human resource panel datasets could be established. Finally, some important issues regardingsurvey purpose, sampling design, execution method, and survey issuance are considered as preparation toward building such data setsin Taiwan.