Cova_compute when providing just the mode

Estimation
1

Dear all,

I provided a mode file to the estimation command. But this file does not contain negative inverse hessian. So, naturally, I set the cova_compute=1, expecting the dynare to compute it and run the mcmc afterwards. However, the estimation does not start, unless I give the negative inverse hessian.

My main question is: is this an intended feature or is it an issue in the codes?

I prepared a minimal .mod file generating the problem:
fs.mod (4.0 KB)
fsdat_simul.m (6.4 KB)
old_mode.mat (420 Bytes)

Btw, I tried to look for the root of this behavior, and here is what I found so far:
driver.m (in line 269) calls the dynare_estimation.m,
which (in line 118) calls the dynare_estimation_1.m
which (in line 109) calls the dynare_estimation_init.m
which should compute and assign the value to hh, i.e. hessian.
However, it doesn’t.

2

In it’s current implementation, cova_compute is only for cases where the actually compute the mode. It’s not implemented for loading a mode-file. In your case, I would recommend simply calling a mode-finder again after loading the mode-file again. If you already found the mode, that value will be preserved and the mode-finder will terminate quickly.