Occasional Freezing While Configuring Dynare

[adamg]

Hi -

I am running dynare in a loop over parameter values using dynare 4.3.3 stable through Matlab R2011a using 64-bit windows 7.

Things work great, but occasionally the loop will freeze when Dynare is configuring. The following displays and then matlab totally freezes:

Configuring Dynare ...
[mex] Generalized QZ.
[mex] Sylvester equation solution.
[mex] Kronecker products.
[mex] Sparse kronecker products.
[mex] Local state space iteration (second order).
[mex] Bytecode evaluation.
[mex] k-order perturbation solver.
[mex] k-order solution simulation.
[mex] Quasi Monte-Carlo sequence (Sobol).
[mex] Markov Switching SBVAR.

Has anyone else had a similar problem? What is the workaround?

Thanks,

Adam

[jpfeifer]

Depending on what you are doing, don't run Dynare in every step. See http://www.dynare.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4891 for looping over stochastic simulations

[adamg]

Thanks. Is there any particular reason the configuration crashes when called repeatedly? Or is it just something that should be avoided?

Adam

[adamg]

Also the post you referenced is for the case where the steady state does not need to be recomputed. Is there an additional step if I recompute the steady state? Or does Dynare handle it when I do stoch_simul([])?

Adam

[jpfeifer]

Whenever you call stoch_simul, it internally recomputes the steady state.

[adamg]

To those who have this issue in the future:

If you are changing the variance of the shock, look at the .m file created from the .mod file. In addition to stoch_simul, I had to update the variance-covariance matrix of the shocks M_.Sigma_e.

Adam

[jpfeifer]

You are right. The set_param_value command only refers to structural parameters. You cannot set standard deviations or measurement error defined in the shocks-block this way. You either have to set M_.Sigma_e directly, or calibrate the shock variances to 1 and use in the model

Code: Select all

+sigma_eps*eps_z

instead of

Code: Select all

+eps_z

The structural parameter sigma_eps now contains the standard deviation and can be set using the set_param_value command. I have updated the referred post to reflect this information.