This section of the website provides access to a variety of resources for users of our RATS and CATS software to help you better use our products. Use the menu above or the links below to access information on downloading procedures and example programs, obtaining Technical Support services, accessing the RATS discussion forum and more.
The Manuals Page has the manuals for the most recent few versions of RATS in PDF form. Note that the proper version of these are also (by default) loaded with the software.
The Help Page has descriptions of all the instructions, procedures and interface. A local copy of this is loaded with the software. The web-based help is kept up to date, and will always describe the most current release of the software.
The Procedures and Examples Page provides access to over a thousand existing RATS procedures and example programs you can download for your own use. Note that if you have a current copy of the program, most of these will already be loaded onto your computer, but the web-based browser may make it easier to find an example for a particular technique.
Our web-based forum is a place for RATS users to exchange ideas, solve programming problems, discuss econometrics topics, and more. The support staff at Estima are active participants, frequently posting example code and procedures on the forums before they appear anywhere else.
If you haven't already done so, please read our Technical Support Policy before contacting us for assistance. It offers some suggestions on resolving problems, and describes the level of support we try to provide.
If you need greater detail on how to use RATS for a particular topic (such as Vector Autoregressions or State-Space Models), we offer web or e-mail based courses.
This page includes links to free course materials for learning more about RATS.
We periodically publish a newsletter (called The RATSLetter) which describes updates to the software, resources available to users and tips both on econometric practice and the use of RATS. You can download PDF copies using the link shown.
If you are experiencing a problem with RATS, you may want to check the List of Known Bugs to see if it is something we know about and have fixed. Others may want to look over this list to see if any known problems might affect your work.
Also, see the list of RATS Manual Errata for corrections to the RATS documentation.