Release of Dynare 4.5.2

Info
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Dear Dynare users and friends,

We are pleased to announce the release of Dynare 4.5.2.

This is a bug fix release.

The Windows packages are already available for download at:

http://www.dynare.org/download/dynare-stable

The Mac and GNU/Linux packages (for Debian and Ubuntu LTS) should follow soon.

This release is compatible with MATLAB versions 7.3 (R2006b) to 9.3 (R2017b)
and with GNU Octave versions 4.2.

Here is a list of the problems identified in version 4.5.1 and that have been
fixed in version 4.5.2:

  • Fixed bug in perfect foresight solver:

    • If expected shocks were declared after the terminal period, as specified
      by the periods option, Dynare was crashing.

    • Models declared with the linear option were crashing if exogenous
      variables were present with a lead or lag.

  • After ML or Bayesian estimation when the smoother option or mh_replic=0
    were not specified, not all smoothed measurement errors were displayed.

  • Fixed error in reference manual about the conditional_forecasts command.

  • Fixed smoother behaviour, provide informative error instead of crashing when
    model cannot be solved.

  • The nopathchange preprocessor option was always triggered, regardless of
    whether it was passed or not.

  • When ramsey_policy is used, allow state variables to be set in histval
    block.

  • histval erroneously accepted leads, leading to cryptic crashes.

  • The prior MC draws from previous runs were not deleted, potentially
    resulting in loading stale files.

  • estim_params_ was being declared global more than once.

  • Fixed crashes happening when simulating linear models with order>1.

  • Make empirical moments independent of simul_replic, as stated in the
    reference manual, by outputting moments computed with the first simulated
    sample.

  • The prior_function required a preceding estimation-command to properly
    set up the prior.

  • If the mode for a parameter was at exactly 0, mode_check was crashing.

  • Fixed get_posterior_parameters-routine which should not do more than
    getting parameters. As a consequence, the shock_decomposition-command
    did not correctly set the parameter_set for use in subsequent function
    calls if shocks are correlated or measurement error is present.

  • Fixed bug in Ramsey problem with constraints both on a policy instrument and
    another variable. Note that the constraint on a variable that is not an
    instrument of the Ramsey problem must be written with an equation tag in the
    model block.

  • Fixed bug in Ramsey problem with constraints on policy instrument.

  • Fixed crash with optimizer 5 when not used with DSGE model at order 1.

  • Fixed mex file used for third order approximation (was crashing on
    Matlab/Windows 7).

On behalf of the Dynare Team,
Stéphane.