RATS Version 8.1
We are now accepting orders for version 8.1. This update to 8.0 adds several new panel data features, two useful new interface features, several new functions, and improvements to a dozen other instructions. It also ships with several new sets of textbook example programs, replication code for fifteen significant econometrics papers, and many new procedures.
Please see our September 2011 RATSletter for more details.
See below for details on the version 8.0 release.
Version 8.0
RATS 8: A new look, new manuals, improved data handling, more powerful tools for organizing results, and much more.
Below are some of the highlights of this new release. Please see our December 2010 RATSletter for more details, including a list of the many new procedures and examples that ship with 8.0.
Revised Manuals
- Completely revised manuals, including a new 180-page Introduction to RATS
- Updated Reference Manual
- Expanded User's Guide with more coverage of state space and DSGE models, switching models and structural breaks, Vector Autoregressions, and Simulations and Bootstrapping.
- Much more extensive cross-referencing.
Interface Improvements
- New View menu operations provide quick access to information on data series.
- Redesigned and expanded toolbar icons
- Many point-and-click Wizards have new features and are easier to use
- More control over default arrangement of Input and Output windows.
Data Management
Making it as easy as possible to get data into the program was a major focus in developing RATS 8. Enhancements include:
- Support for more data formats, including Stata®, EViews® and MATLAB® (support for Excel® 2007 was added with 7.3).
- More flexibility for reading spreadsheet files.
- Data Wizard: Can now read in subsets of data or compact/expand data to different frequency (previously required typing in instructions directly).
- Can read series into memory from a RATS file by simply dragging-and-dropping them onto the Series Window
- Can copy and paste data series data into Series Edit Windows (handy for copying data from web sites or PDF files)
- READ and WRITE support many more formats, including XLS, XLSX, WKS, and MATLAB®.
Improved Reports
Another design goal was to extend the Reports features in RATS to make it even easier for you to translate your results quickly and accurately into publications or other applications.
- Almost all output generated by RATS instructions, such as tables of regression coefficients, can now be reloaded in a report window via the Report Windows menu operation.
- Reports can now be reformatted on screen (changing the displayed precision), and then exported or copy-and-pasted in a number of formats.
- TeX Support: Reports can now be exported as a TeX tabular or copied to the clipboard in TeX format for pasting in a TeX editor. User-defined reports can be formatted to include TeX mathematical expressions.
- Most procedures supplied with RATS now save output as "titled" reports, which can be easily recalled for viewing, exporting, or copying and pasting using the Report Windows operation.
Programming Features
- You can define much more complex nested variable structures, such as “arrays of arrays of arrays” or “arrays of series of arrays”.
- The %IF function accepts a much wider variety of argument types.
Other New Features
- More than thirty functions have been added since version 7.0.
- New DUMMY instruction for generating standard dummy, trading day, and intervention variables.
- VARIANCES=SPILLOVER option on GARCH for the univariate variance model in a CC or DCC model.
- BACKGROUND option on GRPARM for setting the background color of a graph box
- RGF option on SPGRAPH allows you to insert an existing graph file into a matrix of graphs.
- Graph windows are now titled using either their header or footer (if available), making it easier to locate a particular window.
Using an Older Version?
If you are still using a version of RATS older than 7.3, see RATS 7.0-7.3 for information on the improvements introduced in versions 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3.
See Version 6 for a history of versions 6.0 through 6.35. For a revision history covering Versions 4.0 through 5.11, see RATS 4.0 through 5.11.
