This page describes the changes made to RATS in Versions 7.0 through 7.3, in reverse chronological order.

See RATS: Latest Release for details on the current release, RATS Updates for information about updating your RATS software or RATS Information and Features for general information on RATS.

RATS Version 7.3

Below is a list of the main improvements in 7.3. See our January 2010 RATSletter for more details, including a list of the many new procedures and examples that shipped with 7.3. For even more detailed information, download a copy of the RATS 7.3 Supplement that shipped with 7.3. This document lists all of the new features in 7.3, as well as those features added in 7.1 and 7.2

  • More Powerful Data Wizard :

    The Data Wizard for spreadsheet, text, and similar files was revised to allow you to preview the contents of the file you want to read, making it easier to choose the proper settings, deal with any header or footer lines, and so on. The Wizard also makes it easier to compact or expand data to a different frequency.

  • Faster Computations :

    Building on the significant speed increases in 7.2, the 7.3 release offers even faster computations in many cases, particularly for state space models.

  • Reads Data from Excel 2007, Stata, Eviews :

    RATS 7.3 supports reading data from Excel® 2007 "xlsx" format spreadsheets, as well as Stata® data files and EViews® workbook files.

  • Recursive Least Squares Wizard :

    It has a new Wizard interface for the RLS (Recursive Least Squares) instruction.

  • DISPLAY Instruction:

    DISPLAY adds a new option for delimiting output with tabs, commas, or semicolons. Also, you can now use DISPLAY to show the contents of a parameter set or an equation.

  • DLM Instruction:

    The PRESAMPLE option has a new DIFFUSE choice, and PRESAMPLE=ERGODIC can now handle automatically models with a mix of stationary and non-stationary states. There are two new options: MU, which allows for a shift in the observable equation, and LIMIT, which limits the number of times certain matrices are recomputed, significantly reducing the computation time required for large, time-invariant state space models.

  • DSGE Instruction :

    DSGE offers some important new options for capturing additional output and controlling aspects of the model.

  • NPREG and DENSITY :

    Both now have SMOOTHING options which scale the default kernel width up or down.

  • Reports :

    The Report Windows operation replaces the old Restore Report operation, and applies to many more of the reports generated automatically by rats, including the tables of regression coefficients from estimation instructions. Also, rather than restoring reports in the order they were generated, you can now select the desired report from a list. You can now export report windows as TeX tables, in addition to the text file, spreadsheet, html, and other formats supported already. Finally, the new TITLE option on REPORT allows you to provide your own titles for user-generated reports.

  • New Functions :

    RATS 7.3 includes several new built-in functions—see the newsletter or supplement links above for details.

Version 7.2

Version 7.2 began shipping in April, 2009. It offered the following major improvements. See the March, 2009 RATSletter for more details.

  • Windows Version Runs Much Faster: Thanks to compiler improvements, the Windows version of RATS 7.2 does computations nearly twice as quickly as previous versions. Many complex estimation and simulation tasks will now take roughly half as long as before.

  • 64-bit Version Available for Windows (Pro Version): The Professional version of WinRATS now ships with a 64-bit version of the program, allowing you to handle much larger data sets on systems running 64-bit XP or Vista. The 32-bit version is also still included.

  • X12-ARIMA Now Available (Pro Version): Almost all features of the Census X12-ARIMA seasonal adjustment methodology have now been incorporated into the Pro version of RATS, through improvements to the X11 and BOXJENK instructions. This includes log-additive and pseudo-additive adjustments, improved handling of outliers and calendar effects, and more.

  • FRED Database Access (Pro Version): Users with the Professional version 7.2 can now access the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank's FRED database directly from within RATS (requires active internet connection).

  • BOXJENK Improvements: New options for RegARIMA modelling, where the emphasis is on the regression model rather than the time series model for errors. BOXJENK has been optimized to run faster, particularly with seasonal components.

  • DSGE Improvements: This instruction (for Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium models) has improved computational and error-checking capabilities, and a new option for exogenous shocks models.

  • New Wizards: New menu-driven wizards for running unit root tests, density estimation, and non-parameteric regressions.

Version 7.1

RATS Version 7.1 began shipping in August of 2008. It added a new graphing instruction and several other improvements. See below for a brief list, or see the July, 2008 RATSletter for more details. See RATS 7.0 for details on 7.0.

  • New GBOX instruction for doing Box plots

  • Improvements to the DSGE instruction (for Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium models).

  • Improvements to SQL/ODBC support to allow for unlimited-length SQL query strings. Also, the Mac version now supports SQL data access. (Pro versions only).

  • New "right-click" pop-up menus for quick access to many operations via the mouse.

  • New WEIGHT option on many instructions, for dealing with stratified samples.

  • The ability to work with multiple "reports" simultaneously.

  • New General to Specific option for stepwise regressions.

Version 7.0

Version 7.0 was a major upgrade including all new manuals. It began shipping in October, 2007. Below are some of the highlights of RATS 7.0. See the October, 2007 RATSletter for more information.

  • New and Improved Wizards: RATS now offers more than two dozen menu- and dialog-driven "Wizards", providing point-and-click interfaces for everything from reading in data to estimating and analyzing VAR models. Many of the existing Wizards are now more powerful and easier to use.

  • Improved Graphics: Version 7 provides better looking graphs, and gives the user much more control over graph appearance.

  • New DSGE instruction: DSGE (for Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium models) analyzes linear and non-linear models with expectational terms, solving for a set of matrices which can be input into the DLM (state space model) instruction.

  • More IV/GMM Support: The four "least squares" instructions (LINREG and NLLS for single equations, SUR and NLSYSTEM for systems) now have a common set of options for handling GMM estimation in a more flexible way, including choice of method for updating the weight matrices. The biggest change here is the addition of GMM capabilities to SUR (Seemingly Unrelated Regressions).

  • New Functions: Version 7 adds thirty new built-in functions, bringing the total of new functions added since version 6.0 to almost ninety.

  • New Manuals: The revised RATS 7 manuals document all of the new features and changes introduced in Version 7, as well as those that appeared in incremental updates released since Version 6.0.

  • Simplified Syntax: Version 7 introduces a streamlined syntax for many instructions, with easy-to-remember options replacing longer lists of parameters. Note, however, that we still support the older syntax—RATS is largely backwards compatible to Version 4.

For changes in even earlier versions, see RATS Version 6 and RATS Versions 4 and 5.