Release of Dynare 5.2

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We are pleased to announce the release of Dynare 5.2.

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 8.3 (R2014a) to 9.12 (R2022a), and with GNU Octave version 6.4.0 (under Windows).

Note for macOS users with an Apple Silicon processor, and who are also MATLAB users: the official MATLAB version for use on those processors is still the Intel version (running through Rosetta 2), so the official Dynare package for download on our website is built for Intel only. However, since Mathworks has released a beta version of MATLAB for Apple Silicon, we created a beta package of Dynare that you can try with it. See this forum thread for more details: [Testers Wanted] Release of Dynare 5.x-beta for Apple Silicon (M1/M2 chips)

Here is a list of the problems identified in version 5.1 and that have been fixed in version 5.2:

  • Problems with the steady_state operator:
    • if a steady_state operator contained an algebraic expression appearing multiple times in the model and sufficiently complex to trigger the creation of a temporary term, then the result of the operator would be wrong (the operator was essentially ignored)
    • if a steady_state operator contained a call to an external function, then the result of the operator would be wrong (the operator was essentially ignored). A proper fix to this problem would require substantial architectural changes, so for now it is forbidden to use an external
      function inside a steady_state operator
  • Pruning in particle filtering at order 2 was not using the exact same formula as the original Kim et al. (2008) paper. A second-order term entered the cross-product between states and shocks, where it should have been a first-order term. This however would not lead to explosive trajectories in practice
  • The simul_replic option of the stoch_simul command would not store the binary file in the Output folder
  • Problems with Ramsey policy (ramsey_model/ramsey_policy commands):
    • steady state files would not work when auxiliary variables included Lagrange multipliers
    • for linear competitive equilibrium laws of motion, welfare evaluated at higher order was erroneously equated to steady state welfare
  • The discretionary_policy command would not always correctly infer the number of instruments and equations, leading to spurious error messages
  • Perfect foresight simulations of purely forward or backward models would crash if complex numbers were encountered
  • When using both block and bytecode options of the model block, if the model was such that a sufficiently complex algebraic expression appeared both in the residuals and in the derivatives, leading to the creation of a temporary term, then the results could be incorrect under some circumstances
  • When using the bytecode option of the model block, leads of more than +127 or lags of less than -128 were not correctly handled
  • Problems with the solver under occasionally binding constraints (occbin_solver command):
    • when solving the baseline regime, it would not properly handle errors like Blanchard-Kahn violations
    • the piecewise linear Kalman filter (PKF) would crash if the model solution could not be computed for a parameter draw
    • the oo_.FilteredVariablesKStepAhead and oo_.UpdatedVariables MATLAB/Octave variables would contain the steady state twice
    • the inversion filter would crash if the filter_step_ahead or state_uncertainty options were requested
    • the PKF would crash if filter_step_ahead=1 was specified
    • the PKF would crash if the state_uncertainty option was specified together with the smoother_redux option
    • the last regime before the system is back to normal times in the two-constraints case could be wrongly set, possibly leading to wrong simulations, lack of convergence or crashes
  • Problems with identification (identification command):
    • with prior_mc>1 specified, it would incorrectly display the share of rank deficient Jacobians
    • it would crash during plotting or displaying identification strength when the necessary identification criteria based on moments could not be computed
  • The plot_shock_decomposition command would crash if invalid field names were encountered
  • The shock_decomposition command would not pass specified initial dates to generated plots
  • Various pathological cases encountered in steady state finding could lead to a crash
  • The solve_algo=0 option of the steady command would not honor tolx
  • In the dynare_sensitivity command, stability mapping would not correctly honor the prior bounds

As a reminder, the list of new features introduced in versions 5.x can be found in the release notes for 5.0.