Release of Dynare 4.6.4

Info
1

We are pleased to announce the release of Dynare 4.6.4.

This maintenance release fixes various bugs.

The Windows, macOS and source packages are already available for download at the Dynare website.

All users are strongly encouraged to upgrade.

This release is compatible with MATLAB versions ranging from 7.9 (R2009b) to 9.10 (R2021a), and with GNU Octave version 6.2.0 (under Windows).

Here is a list of the problems identified in version 4.6.3 and that have been fixed in version 4.6.4:

  • Passing multiple shock values through a MATLAB/Octave vector in a mshocks block would not work
  • The mode_compute=12 option was broken
  • The use_mh_covariance_matrix option was ignored
  • The load_mh_file option together with mh_replic=0 would not allow computing moments_varendo for a different list of variables
  • The forecast option was ignored when using mode_compute=0 without a mode-file to execute the smoother
  • The discretionary_policy command would crash in the presence of news shocks
  • The ramsey_constraints block would crash if the constraints contained defined parameters
  • Identification would display a wrong error message if a unit root was present and diffuse_filter had been set
  • Particle filter estimation would crash if the initial state covariance became singular for a draw
  • Particle filter estimation would crash if k_order_solver option was specified with options_.particle.pruning
  • The initial state covariance in particle filter estimation could be NaN when using nonlinear_filter_initialization=2 despite options_.particles.pruning=1
  • Output of smoother results when using particle filters would be based on order=1
  • Output of moments_varendo results when using particle filters would be based on order=1
  • When decreasing the order in .mod files, oo_.dr could contain stale results from higher orders
  • Estimation results using the particle filter at order=3 would be incorrect if the restricted state space differed from the unrestricted one
  • The mode_compute=102 option (SOLVEOPT) could return with Inf instead of the last feasible value
  • Using analytic_derivation for Bayesian estimation would result in wrong results when the multivariate Kalman filter entered the steady state stage
  • Using analytic_derivation for maximum likelihood estimation would result in a crash
  • When using the Bayesian smoother with filtered_vars, the field for Filtered_Variables_X_step_ahead used the length of vector instead of the actual steps in filter_step_ahead
  • mode_compute=1,3 crashed when analytic_derivation was specified
  • mode_compute=1,3,102 did only allow for post-MATLAB 2016a option names
  • The cova_compute=0 option was not working with user-defined MCMC_jumping_covariance
  • The mode_compute=1 option was not working with analytic_derivation
  • Not all commands were honouring the M_.dname folder when saving
  • LaTeX output of the simulated variance decomposition for observables with measurement error could have a wrong variable label

As a reminder, the list of new features introduced in versions 4.6.x can be found in the release notes for 4.6.0.

4 Likes
3

Dear All,

Thanks for the new release of Dynare!

Does the following also imply it is now possible running non-linear estimation without including measurement errors?

Many thanks in advance for your eventual reply.

4

No, it simply means that pruning was not used for the initialization simulation. In that case, simulations could explode, resulting in NaN unconditional variances.