This page documents some parts of the design for the new estimation DLL.

Improvements over existing MATLAB code includes factorization of common code and extensions for (unexpected) structural change

Note that this new implementation supersedes previous attempts to make a faster Kalman filter in C++, and to optimize Ricatti equation update in Fortran (both were removed from Git in 5504811b1a53c358d03368c97a84641de2fee0c5).

Since the code allows for unexpected structural changes, parameters will be allowed to change over time. More precisely, the user will be allowed to associated a time range to each entry in the estimated_params block. For example, if a given parameter can have a break between dates t and t+1, then the user will declare this parameter two times in the estimated_params block: one time for the period [1:t], another time for [t+1:T] (where T is the total length of the data sample).

Terminology

List of sub-samples

As they are declared by the user, time ranges for different estimated parameters can overlap.

For example, suppose there are 10 estimation periods, that parameter alpha has a break between date 3 and 4, while parameter beta has a break between date 5 and 6. There are therefore 4 estimated parameters: alpha over [1:3], alpha over [4:10], beta over [1:5], beta over [6:10].

The problem is that here, alpha is not constant inside the two subsamples for beta, and vice-versa. This creates implementation problems.

The solution is to compute a partition of [1:10] such that every estimated parameter is constant inside every subsample. In our case, we have 3 subsamples in this partition: [1:3], [4:5], [6:10]. The estimated parameters become: alpha over [1:3], alpha over [4:5]+[6:10], beta over [1:3]+[4:5], beta over [6:10].

We will assume that the computing of this partition is done outside the Estimation DLL (in the preprocessor or in the M-files).

The estimation DLL will be passed a structure containing all the information for the subsamples. Each subsample will be assigned an ID, in chronological order. The estimation DLL will be passed a vector<pair<int, int> > which will associate a subsample ID to its start and end period.

Estimated parameters description

Suppose there are n estimated parameters. Then the estimation DLL will be passed a structure containing the following information for each estimated parameter:

Remark. The field Prior is empty if the model is estimated by maximum lilkelihood, simulated moments or indirect inference.

Remark 2. This list of estimated parameters description will be arranged in such a way that elements of type 1 and 2 all appear before elements of type 3 and 4. This greatly facilitates the work of computing the covariance elements (using the correlations and the diagonal variance elements).

Functions

Additional Description Notes

Kalman

As change in parameters is not expected by the agents, the solution is very simple, we simply change the values of the system matrices in the Kalman filter within each sub-sample.

However, it would be too complicated to write a Kalman filter routine with changing matrices, so we prefer repeat the basic steps of the current implementation of DsgeLikelihood for each sub-sample during which all parameters remain unchanged.

The consistency of the transition from one sub-period to the next is insured by the proper initialization of initial state (a0) and initial covariance matrix (P0), that are taken from the last value of the previous sub-sample.

Likelihood Calculation

The likelihood (posterior) for the entire sample is simply computed as the sum of the likelihood for each sub-sample (weighted for the length of the sub-sample?).

From an estimation point of view, the changing parameters are treated as different parameters, so in the prior, constant parameters count for one, and each different values of a parameter count each for one as well.

Therefore, the value of log prior is not computed in the loop but only once at the end of DsgeLikelihood for all parameters.

Because we compute the likelihood (posterior) for the entire sample, introducing changing parameters doesn't modify the way the optimizers or the MCMC procedures calls DsgeLikelihood.

See also

C++ Estimation and DsgeLikelihood Design

DynareWiki: EstimationModule (last edited 2011-07-05 09:43:21 by SébastienVillemot)