Dynare 5.1 Released

Posted on 06 April 2022

We are pleased to announce the release of Dynare 5.1.

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).

Here is a list of the problems identified in version 5.0 and that have been fixed in version 5.1:

  • Various problems with perfect foresight simulations in combination with block and/or bytecode options of the model block:
    • Simulation with bytecode and stack_solve_algo=4 could give incorrect results if the model has a linear block of type “Solve two boundaries simple/complete”
    • Simulation with bytecode and stack_solve_algo=1 could fail to converge
    • Simulation with block (but without bytecode) and stack_solve_algo=1 gave wrong results in the last simulation period if the model has a block of type “Solve two boundaries simple/complete”
    • Simulation with bytecode and block would give incorrect results if the model has a linear block of type “Solve forward simple/complete”
    • Simulation with block (but without bytecode) would crash or give incorrect results if the model has a block of type “Solve forward/backward simple/complete”
    • Simulation with bytecode, block and stack_solve_algo={0,1,4} would crash or give incorrect results if the model has a block of type “Solve forward/backward complete”
    • Simulation with block (but without bytecode) gave incorrect results if the model has a block of type “Solve backward simple/complete”
    • Simulation with block (with or without bytecode) could give incorrect results if the model has a nonlinear block of type “Solve forward/backward simple/complete”
    • Simulation with bytecode, block and stack_solve_algo=4 could give incorrect results if the model has a block of type “Solve backward/forward simple/complete” that follows a block of type “Solve two boundaries” (in the sense of the dependency graph)
    • The convergence criterion in simulations with block (but without bytecode) was incorrect: the value of the tolf option from the steady command was used instead of the value of tolf option from the perfect_foresight_solver command
  • Various problems with steady state computation in combination with block and/or bytecode options of the model block:
    • Steady state computation with bytecode and block could fail if some equations are marked [static]
    • Steady state computation with bytecode, block and solve_algo ⩽ 4 or ⩾ 9 could fail
    • Steady state computation with bytecode, block and solve_algo=6 would crash or give incorrect results if the model has a block of type “Solve forward/backward complete”
  • The check command would crash or give incorrect results when using the block option of the model block and if the model has a block of type “Solve backward complete”
  • The static and incidence options of the model_info command did not work as documented in the reference manual
  • Various problems with the method_of_moments command:
    • It would crash if no matched_moments block is present
    • It would always load the full range of the first Excel sheet instead of the xls_range of the specified xls_sheet
    • SMM would crash if a parameter draw triggers an error during additional_optimizer_steps = 13
    • The debug option could not be passed to the command
  • In the estimation command, the scale_file field of the posterior_sampler_options option did not correctly load the scale
  • The moments_varendo option of the estimation command could crash for large models
  • The resid command would not show name tags when used in conjunction with the ramsey_model command
  • Simulations with the occbin_solver command would not work if there is only a surprise shock in the first period
  • The Liu & West auxiliary particle filter could enter infinite loops

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