EasyReg International 2009

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

Current and future versions of EasyReg

• Current version of EasyReg International
• Upgrade procedure
• Upgrades not yet included in the current version
• Planned future upgrades

Differences between the versions February 25, 2008 and October 1, 2009:

Bug repairs

A non-essential bug in module VAR (VAR innovation response analysis) has been repaired.

On monitors with high resolution setting the appearance of EasyReg in full screen mode did not show well. In particular, the controls did not line up. This problem has been fixed. Since this problem occured in all modules, EasyReg has been completely recompiled.

New features

The standard Visual Basic message and input boxes have been replaced by fully rescalable native EasyReg versions.

The guided tours and the help file HELP.HTM are now automatically opened in Internet Explorer, even if Internet Explorer is not the default web browser. The reason is that some of the guided tours contain mathematical and Greek symbols, with are displayed incorrectly in other browsers.
Note: If you have removed Internet Explorer from your PC, EasyReg will try to activate the default web browser. However, I have not been able to check whether this works.

When updating EasyReg and its guided tours via the "WWW" menu, the web pages involved are now automatically opened in Internet Explorer, even if Internet Explorer is not the default web browser. The reason is that Internet Explorer allows to run the self-extracting WinZip EXE files involved directly. Also, EasyReg now automatically checks which EasyReg files have been upgraded. Previously you had to download and execute first a self-extracting WinZip file containing the names and dates of the latest versions of the EasyReg files.

It is no longer necessary to provide EasyReg with the path to the Microsoft Excel executable file EXCEL.EXE. If Excel is installed on your computer, EasyReg is now able to open it directly.

The module (DATAOLD) which imports data files in EasyReg space delimited text format can now also import data files with the same setup but with tab delimited data entries. Upon reading these data files EasyReg now automatically replaces all tabs with spaces. Although it is explicitly stated in the guided tour involved that "Tabs are not allowed as data separators!", I got too many queries from EasyReg users asking why their data files could not be imported in EasyReg, and the reason was often the use of tabs as data separators. The type of tabs EasyReg can handle are the ones created in Notepad and Wordpad. Tabs created in other word processors, for example WordPerfect, may not be recognized by EasyReg.

When you run a Poisson regression (via module LIMDEP) the Cameron-Trivedi test will now be conducted. See
Cameron, A. C. and P.K. Trivedi (1990), Regression-based tests for overdispersion in the Poisson model, Journal of Econometrics 46, 347-364.

Upgrade EasyReg to the current version

Note that EasyReg can also be upgraded to the current version via the EasyReg menu item "WWW > Upgrade EasyReg to the latest version." However, before you use this option, open

• ERIPATCH1.EXE.

Upgrades not yet included in the current version

• October 30, 2009:
  • The transformation of variables module TRANS did not allow for negative values of the variable "a" in the transformations max(x,a), min(x,a), the dummy variables and missing value transformations. It does now.
  • A cosmetic bug in the linear and multiplicative transformation windows of module TRANS has been repaired.
• November 18, 2009:
  • A bug in the quantile regression module QUANTILE has been repaired. The effect of this bug was that multicollinearity was not detected. It is now. Thanks to Shaun McPeck for pointing this out to me.

Planned future upgrades

I have gotten many request 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 and which I am (occasionally) working on to improve:

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.

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