Release of Dynare 4.1.0

This release adds new features and fixes important bugs.

The most noticeable new features are:

  • Third order approximation of stochastic models
  • Faster computation of deterministic simulations and steady state on big models (using block decomposition)
  • Support of estimation with missing observations (i.e. some variables may not have observable data at all periods)
  • Incorporation of the Anderson-Moore Algorithm (AIM) to compute the decision rules, as an option
  • Leads and lags are now allowed on exogenous variables
  • New operator to specify steady state value of a variable inside the model
  • New operator to take the expectancy of a variable at another date than the current one
  • Possibility of creating a LaTeX output file containing the model equations

Other interesting changes:

  • The latest version of Dynare++ is now distributed in the same package than Dynare
  • This version of Dynare fully supports 64-bit versions of MATLAB
  • The reference manual has been updated with all the new commands and options

For more details about new features, see NewFeatures page.

This release also fixes many bugs. In particular, previous versions of Dynare were giving a wrong solution for the 2nd order approximation of stochastic models with leads of 2 or more. See KnownBugs for a complete list of known (and now fixed) bugs of previous versions.

All users are therefore strongly encouraged to upgrade to this new version.

The Windows package for both MATLAB and Octave is available for download on the website. Mac and Linux package should follow soon.

Note that users of MATLAB 64-bit under Windows need to install Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 redistributable package for full performance.