This page documents known bugs in Dynare. A bug is associated with the latest version in which it appears (i.e. it has been or will be fixed in the next version).
Version 4.2.1
The conditional_forecast command is buggy: it always uses the posterior mode, whatever the value of the parameter_set option
Some native MATLAB statements are not correctly passed on to MATLAB (e.g. x = { 'foo' 'bar' } )
With the block option of model, the preprocessor fails if there is an expression of the form "a^b" (with no endogenous in "a" but an endogenous in "b")
Potential crashes with external_function
- MEX files for MATLAB fail to compile with GCC 4.6
STEADY_STATE does not work correctly when it contains certain types of expressions (those that contain addition/subtraction) as it fails to place parenthesis around it
- The secondary rank test following the order test of the Blanchard and Kahn condition is faulty and almost never triggered.
- The variance prior for BVAR "à la Sims" with only one lag is inconsistent; the solution implemented consists of adding one extra observation in the presample used to compute the prior; as a consequence, the numerical results for all estimations will be slightly different in future releases
Version 4.2.0
STEADY_STATE operator is buggy
- This version does not work with MATLAB 7.3 (R2006b) and older
ramsey_policy does not compute the value of the planner objective, contrarily to what is announced in the NewFeatures list
partial_information option of stoch_simul is broken
Option conditional_variance_decomposition of stoch_simul and estimation is broken
Automatic detrending does not work in conjunction with EXPECTATION operator
- Octave 3.4 is not fully supported, though most files should work
Using percentage sign inside strings in MATLAB statements (like disp('% This is not a comment %')) does not work
- Beta prior with a very small standard deviation doesn't work unless you have Matlab Statistical toolbox.
- External functions do not work when assigned to model local variables
identification is buggy
Option cova_compute of estimation command is buggy
3rd order approximation without use_dll option can under some circumstances lead to a crash or a dummy result
Version 4.1.3
- Under Octave, the deterministic solver fails on models with more than one lead or one lag
Exogenous variables in histval are incorrectly handled in a stochastic setup
varexo_det does not work in conjunction with use_dll
- EXPECTATION operator works incorrectly when more than one such operator is invoked on the same expression with differing information sets (e.g., something like EXPECTATION(1)(x) and EXPECTATION(-2)(x) appear in the same model block).
- Estimation fails under Octave if there is only one observed variable
- This version of Dynare does not compile against Boost libraries 1.44 or newer
Version 4.1.2
- third order approximation can be wrong or make Dynare fail on some models
check command fails in deterministic setup (corrected in unstable 07/23/2010)
the covariance elements of optim_weights (used with osr) are not working properly
in a stochastic setup, model local variables are systematically replaced by their expression in the static/dynamic M/C files, resulting in huge output if there is a lot of such variables (bugfix changeset)
- EXPECTATION operator with a lag makes stoch_simul crash
the histval block is buggy in the presence of auxiliary variables (i.e. when there are lags of two or more)
- the preprocessor crashes when the mean or stderr of an estimated parameter with beta PDF is specified as an expression instead of a plain value
- deterministic simulation with block decomposition crash when there is a purely backward or purely forward block of more than one equation
STEADY_STATE operator does not work with use_dll option or with block without bytecode
- the preprocessor crashes when some dynamic variables appear only in unused model local variables
stoch_simul: in the presence of non-stationary variables, and when selecting only a subset of variables for the output, the "NaN"s in the "mean" column may be wrongly placed
Version 4.1.1
Models with leads on exogenous can be mishandled (creation of AuxiliaryVariables is buggy in that case)
Option mode_compute=6 of estimation command fails under Octave
normcdf() primitive cannot be used with bytecode option
In the macro-processor, integer ranges a:b where a>b are not empty
Version 4.1.0
- Optimal simple rule (OSR) is broken in models with no unit root
- Root mean squared error is wrong for BVAR forecast
- Dynare++ binary shipped in Windows package crashes on some MOD files (it is a problem with the C++ compiler used to create it). Until a new Dynare is released, Windows users should use the Dynare++ binary distributed in the snapshot
- Bug in mode_check when the last screen of plots isn't complete
- dynasave command is broken
- Under Octave 3.0, option stack_solve_algo=3 is broken
- Under Octave/Windows with USE_DLL, Dynare requires option 'cygwin' or 'msvc', although it makes no use of it
- Conditional forecasts are wrong in models with non zero steady state or trends
Version 4.0.4
- 2nd order approximation of decision rules for stochastic models with leads greater than 2 are wrong
in deterministic models, putting a shocks block before an endval block leads to wrong results; the right order is to put endval before shocks
- this version doesn't support MATLAB R2009a and R2009b on 64-bit platforms
in estimation, option mode_file shouldn't be used if the posterior mode has been computed for a model with a different specification, even if the list of estimated parameters is the same. This can result in wrong results without error message
- with Octave, in stochastic simulations, Dynare will return wrong eigenvalues if the MEX file "mjdgges" is not present
- the resid() function messes up things when doing deterministic simulations, and should be avoided in that case
Version 4.0.2
Option dr_algo has been suppressed without warning in this version
Version 4.0.1
- shocks_file option is missing
there is a bug in DsgeSmoother.m for models with measurement errors (thanks for hlousek for reporting it)
Octave crashes in mode_check.m, MakeAllFigures.m and PosteriorIRF.m, because of missing saveas() function (thanks to Gianni Lombardo for reporting)
- estimation crashes when mode_file is specified, at least under Octave (thanks to Gianni Lombardo for reporting)
Version 4.0.0
typo at the top of DiffuseKalmanSmootherH1.m (thanks to Tsu-ting Tim Lin for reporting)
- call to cumulative normal distribution is broken (thanks to Karl Walentin for reporting)
- script for building MEX files under Matlab R2008a is broken (thanks to Slim Bridji for reporting)
- homotopy mode 3 is broken
- BVAR à la Sims: Dynare doesn't accept integer values for tau and lambda parameters (thanks to Aqua for reporting)