EasyReg International 2012

Previous versions of EasyReg

• SimplReg, the DOS predecessor of EasyReg.
• Versions 1.08-1.12 (1997)
• Versions 1.13-1.20 (1998)
• Versions 1.21-1.30 (1999)
• EasyReg 2000
• EasyReg International, 2001 versions
• EasyReg International, 2002 versions
• EasyReg International, 2003 versions
• EasyReg International, 2004 versions
• EasyReg International, 2005 versions
• EasyReg International, 2006 versions
• EasyReg International, 2007 versions
• EasyReg International, 2008 versions
• EasyReg International, 2009 versions
• EasyReg International, 2010 versions
• EasyReg International, 2011 versions

Current and future versions of EasyReg

• Current version of EasyReg International
• Upgrades not yet included in the current version
• Future upgrades

Improvements

The option in the Johansen's cointegration module to conduct the Bierens-Martins test for time-varying cointegration now also creates plot data for the time-varying cointegrating vector(s). This plot data has to be imported in EasyReg as time series, so that the plots can be made via the time series plot module.

In the auto/cross correlation module the computation of the Box-Pierce Q statistics is now optional, with default option not to compute them.

The upgrade procedures via WWW did not work well under Windows 7. It it has now been replaced with direct downloading procedures instead of the previous procedure via Internet Explorer.

Most EasyReg modules have been updated to fit better on wide screen monitors and lap tops in full screen mode.

Bug repairs

The problem under Windows 7 that some text and label boxes are blacked-out has been fixed.

Differences between the versions June 17 and September 20, 2012:

Improvements

In the EasyReg upgrade procedure (WWW > Upgrade EasyReg to the latest version) the module ERIUPGRADE.EXE was copied to the subfolder TEMP in the EasyReg folder and then this copy was executed. The reason was to enable ERIUPGRADE.EXE itself to be upgraded. However, the copy TEMP\ERIUPGRADE.EXE may not be able to find the necessary Windows system files to run, in particular in the case of the stand-alone version of EasyReg. Therefore, EasyReg now makes a copy ERIUPGRADE2.EXE of ERIUPGRADE.EXE in the EasyReg folder itself and executes this copy.

In the upgrade procedure for the EasyReg guided tours (WWW > Upgrade the EasyReg guided tours) the module ERITOURSUPGRADE.EXE was also copied to the subfolder TEMP in the EasyReg folder and then this copy was executed. Now ERITOURSUPGRADE.EXE itself is executed.

Bug repairs

A cosmetic bug in module ERDATDIR, which lets you continue with a previous session, has been repaired.

A bug in module NEXTGARCH, which estimates ARCH and GARCH models, has been repaired. This bug gave an error code 9: Subscript out of range. Thanks to Gerald Holtham for bringing this problem to my attention.

Upgrades not yet included in the current version

• October 6, 2012
  The guided tour on Johansen's cointegration analysis has been updated and extended with the Bierens-Martins time-varying cointegration test.

Future upgrades

I have gotten many requests from EasyReg users to include new features in EasyReg, such as tests for long memory, or double-censored Tobit models. However, EasyReg is a one-man's project, so I may not have the time to do that before I retire from PennState. Therefore, I will give priority to building in new features related to my own research, as the main purpose of keeping EasyReg free is to promote my own research. On the other hand, any bugs reported to me will be fixed straight away.

There are a few imperfections in EasyReg that have bothered me:

1. Allowing for sample sizes over 32,767 observations. This maximum is due to the maximum integer value in Visual Basic. However, this is going to be a major operation, affecting almost all modules.
2. The 3-dimensional (3D) plots look sometimes ragged in the case of narrow shapes. This is likely due to the fact that the EasyReg 3D plots are based on a grid of rectangles rather than on a grid of triangles.
3. As reported in
   • Choi, Hwan-sik and Nicholas M. Kiefer (2005), "Software evaluation: EasyReg International", International Journal of Forecasting 21, 609-616,
   the accuracy of the numerical function optimizer in EasyReg (based on the Nelder and Mead simplex method), which is used for models with possibly non-unimodal objective functions, in particular the user-defined nonlinear models and ARMA models, is inferior to the accuracy of the numerical optimizer "nlinfit" in Matlab 7. However, as Choi and Kiefer mentioned, most numerical optimizers have the same problem with the particular nasty data set involved. On the other hand, in my experience the accuracy of the EasyReg numerical optimizer is adequate for most actual and simulated data.

However, somebody else has to address these issues once EasyReg is made open source (soon), as I will be retiring effective July 1, 2012.

Back to the EasyReg page

Back to the EasyReg download page