RATS (Regression Analysis of Time Series) is a fast, efficient, and comprehensive econometrics and time series analysis software package. For more than two decades, it has been the econometrics software of choice at universities, central banks, and corporations around the world. Our current release, Version 10.0, is easier to use than ever while continuing to offer the most advanced tools available for cutting-edge econometrics research.
ECONOMETRICS AND DATA MANAGEMENT
RATS provides all the basics you expect, including linear and non-linear least squares, forecasting, SUR, and ARIMA models. But it goes far beyond that, with support for techniques like GMM, ARCH and GARCH models, state space models, and more. RATS also offers unmatched support for Vector Autoregression models, and is one of the few programs to offer spectral analysis capabilities.
RATS can handle time series of virtually any frequency, including daily and weekly, as well as panel and cross-section data.
Menu-driven data wizards and support for reading various text, spreadsheet, and database file formats make it easy to get your data into RATS. Our Professional version adds support for more database formats, including SQL/ODBC data access, for even more flexibility.
THE RATS EDITOR
Our interactive RATS Editor environment allows you to quickly implement econometric analysis tasks, and makes it easy to try different model specifications or techniques without having to rerun entire programs.
You can save your work as a RATS program, allowing you to reproduce your results at any time with just a couple of mouse clicks.
POINT-AND-CLICK WIZARDS
The editor also offers more than 40 menu-driven Wizards that provide point-and-click access to most common tasks, including reading data, displaying graphs, doing transformations, estimating a variety of models, and hypothesis testing. These help make RATS an ideal tool for new users and for use in educational settings.
When you use a Wizard, RATS displays the corresponding commands in the editor window so you can actually learn the RATS language through using the Wizards. This also allows you to use the Wizards to build complete programs that can be re-executed again later.
An often-overlooked aspect of econometric research is ensuring that results are reported accurately. RATS addresses this via a powerful report-generation feature for quickly generating accurate tables of reports, which you can export to text or spreadsheet files for direct inclusion in papers and presentations.
HIGH-QUALITY GRAPHS
RATS allows you to create publication-quality time series graphs, scatter plots, and contour graphs.
PROGRAMMING CAPABILITIES
The command-driven language at the heart of the program remains easy to learn and use for simple jobs, but its extensive programming capabilities also allow you to handle much more complex tasks. Features include user-definable procedures and functions, looping and program control instructions, and the ability to create user-defined menus and dialog boxes. With these capabilities, you can automate complex or repetitive tasks, and even write sophisticated menu- and dialog-driven end-user applications.
All versions of RATS also offer “batch mode” operation. You can run jobs several ways: from the command line; by dragging and dropping files; or by double-clicking on a desktop icon. This is especially helpful for users who need to run the same jobs on a regular basis.
CROSS PLATFORM SUPPORT
RATS is available for Windows, Macintosh, UNIX, and Linux, with complete compatibility across platforms. You can share programs, data files, output, and graph files across any of these platforms with no translation required.
RATS PROFESSIONAL
The professional level of RATS adds the following features not found in the Standard level:
- Support for reading databases via ODBC/SQL
- Census Bureau X12-ARIMA seasonal adjustment routine
- Support for FAME data files (for Windows and unix/linux)
- Support for CRSP data files
- Online access to the FRED database
RATS ADD-ON APPLICATIONS – CATS 2.0
CATS (Cointegration Analysis of Time Series) is a set of cointegration analysis procedures for use with the RATS software program. It was written by Henrik Hansen and Katarina Juselius, and is based on the research of Johansen, Juselius, and Hansen of the University of Copenhagen for use with RATS software.
CATS provides a wide variety of tools for analyzing your data and choosing and testing a cointegration model. The program is almost completely menu- and dialog-driven. You begin by running a short RATS program to define your data and load the CATS procedure. This adds several CATS menus to the RATS menu bar, and you perform your analysis by selecting operations from these menus. CATS will prompt you for any needed input.
WHAT’S INCLUDED?
The CATS 2.0 package includes the CATS procedure on CD and a completely revised 200-page manual describing the econometrics of the cointegrated VAR model and how to interpret the output. All features of the program are illustrated by a worked example. The manual also includes a technical appendix describing the mathematics of CATS. Sample data and set-up files for the illustrative examples are also included.
| STATISTICAL METHODS
ESTIMATION TECHNIQUES
TIME SERIES PROCEDURES
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FORECASTING
VECTOR AUTOREGRESSIONS (VARS)
ARCH AND GARCH MODELS
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| WORKING WITH DATA
DATA ENTRY
DATA TRANSFORMATIONS
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GRAPHICS
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| INTERFACE
INTERACTIVE MODE ENVIRONMENT
PROGRAMMABILITY
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REPORT CAPABILITIES
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The new versions have substantially more clickable links, both within the manuals themselves, and also to the help on the web site, which now includes detailed descriptions of most of the procedures.
The main enhancements with 10.0 are:
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CALENDAR now allows for irregular input dates to handle daily data with skipped entries for holidays while maintaining the ability to use dates on input and output. The DATA instruction has a JULIAN option which pulls that information from a date column on the file, while several new functions will compute the required information from information coded in other ways (such as separate year, month and day fields on the file). In particular, GRAPH can now show dates on graphs with irregular dated data. |
The Data (Other Formats) Wizard now includes handling for name overrides if the name on the file isn’t permitted by RATS (for instance, name fields with blanks) or is long or cryptic. The Box-Jenkins (ARIMA), ARCH/GARCH(Univariate) and ARCH/GARCH(Multivariate) Wizards have all been converted to use tabs to reduce clutter.
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GARCH allows DISTRIB=GED on multivariate models (not just univariate) and adds the DCC and QBAR options to control the secondary recursion for the DCC model. |
ERRORS, IMPULSE and HISTORY, which require fully linear models for their calculations, will now accept models with simple FRML’s if those are in a linear form (typically for identities which are often easier to write as FRML’s). |
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HISTORY has new BASE and EFFECTS options which are an easier-to-use way to obtain the breakdown of the historical decomposition. |
RATS 10’s documentation has been completely revised to incorporate the changes made since version 9, and improve the presentation of the information to answer commonly asked questions. |
A more extensive discussion of all the new features, commands and options can be found in the latest edition of the Rats Newsletter
La invitiamo a leggere attentamente le condizioni d’uso del software RATS
| SINGLE-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
You may use the software on any compatible computer, provided you use it on only one computer at a time. For instance, you can install it on both a home computer and an office computer. Or you may use the software on a network or file server provided that access is limited to one user at a time.
Limited Warranties. 1. Estima does not warrant that the program will meet your requirements, or that operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free. Estima, however, warrants the media on which the program is furnished to be free from defects in materials and workmanship under normal use for a period of ninety(90) days from the date of delivery to you, as evidenced by a copy of your receipt. Your exclusive remedy for breach of this warranty shall be the replacement (without charge to you) of a disk not meeting Estima’s warranty. 2. Estima makes no other warranties, either express or implied, and Estima shall not be liable for implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, nor for the special, incidental, or consequential damages such as loss or profits or inability to use the software. The remedy for breach of this warranty shall be limited to replacement of the media.
Governing Law. This license is governed by the laws of the State of Illinois and the United States of America. |
MULTIPLE-USER/NETWORK LICENSE AGREEMENT
Multiple User/Network License. This is a multiple user/network license. You (the Licensee) may (a) install this on the number of computers indicated by the User Limit, solely for use by your employees (and your students if you are an institution of higher learning), or (b) install this on a single local area network provided the number of simultaneous users is limited to the User Limit. If the User Limit is “Unlimited”, you may do both. As this is a perpetual license, you are responsible for seeing that the software is removed from computers installed under option (a) when the computer no longer is in the possession of an employee or student. Should there be users (such as students) for whom enforcement of this would be difficult, you can obtain install disks for the software from Estima that are time-limited. Copies of the program installed with these would still count against your User Limit, but only for the time during which the program would be activated.
Limited Warranties: 1. Estima does not warrant that the program will meet your requirements, or that operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free. Estima, however, warrants the media on which the program is furnished to be free from defects in materials and workmanship under normal use for a period of ninety(90) days from the date of delivery to you, as evidenced by a copy of your receipt. Your exclusive remedy for breach of this warranty shall be the replacement (without charge to you) of a disk not meeting Estima’s warranty. 2. Estima makes no other warranties, either express or implied, and Estima shall not be liable for implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, nor for the special, incidental, or consequential damages such as loss or profits or inability to use the software. The remedy for breach of this warranty shall be limited to replacement of the media.
Governing Law. This license is governed by the laws of the State of Illinois and the United States of America. |
FRED Database Access
This product uses the FRED® API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Data series available through the FRED® API, may be owned by third parties and subject to copyright restrictions. Although the FRED® API allows RATS to access FRED®, ALFRED® , or other data series, neither the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’s provision of the FRED® API to Estima, or Estima’s inclusion of the FRED® API in RATS, override the data series owners’ copyrights, requirements and restrictions. You are solely responsible for complying with any requirements or restrictions imposed on usage of the data series by their respective owners.
The Professional version adds the X12 Census Bureau seasonal adjustment procedure and enhanced database access features, including ODBC/SQL data access, support for reading and writing FAME format database files, and the ability to read CRSP data.
WINRATS:
WinRATS runs on all recent versions of Windows, including Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP, in either 32-bit or 64-bit. Here are the minimum system requirements:
- A PC with a Pentium or later processor
- Memory requirements will depend largely on the size of the data sets you need to work with. You will need approximately 1 Megabyte of RAM for every 128,000 data points. The RATS program itself is fairly compact, and only requires about 1 Megabyte of RAM to load.
- A hard disk drive with at least 200Mb of free disk space (for a full installation, including all examples, procedures, and documentation)
- Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista or XP
MACRATS:
MacRATS requires an Intel-based Mac and requires version 10.9 or later of OS X. It has been tested with all OS X upgrades through Hight Sierra (10.13).
- Any Macintosh capable for running OS X 10.9 or later.
- OS X 10.9 or later
- Memory requirements will depend largely on the size of the data sets you need to work with. You will need approximately 1 Megabyte of RAM for every 128,000 data points. The RATS program itself is fairly compact, and only requires about 1 Megabyte of RAM to load.
- A hard disk drive with at least 175Mb of free disk space (for a full installation, including all examples, procedures, and documentation)
RATS FOR UNIX AND LINUX
RATS is available for most UNIX-based workstations, including Sun, HP, and IBM systems. We also support Intel-based PC’s running Linux. (It is also possible to compile and run our UNIX version on Macintosh OS X systems, but most Mac users will prefer to use MacRATS, which is written specifically for the Mac OS X operating system).
For most of these, RATS is shipped as C and C++ language source code, which must be compiled on the target machine with an ANSI-standard C/C++ compiler. The Linux version is provided as a pre-compiled executable, with the source code available as an option.
The UNIX and Linux versions support essentially all of the features offered in the Windows and Macintosh versions, including the complete interactive mode “RATS Editor” interface. In order to use the interactive interface, your system must support X Windows, and GTK libraries must be available if you need to compile the source. With version 9, we switched from using the older Motif to the more modern and better-supported GTK.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
- Processor: virtually any CPU running UNIX; Intel Pentium-based or later PC running Linux; a Macintosh running Mac OS X (PowerPC or Intel CPU)
- An ANSI-standard C/C++ compiler (optional for Linux)
- GTK libraries (not required for batch mode operation)
- Disk Space: 250Mb of available space for a full installation, including documentation and examples
- Memory Requirements: depends largely on the size of the data sets that will be used.
RATS FOR WINDOWS AND MACINTOSH
The Windows and Macintosh versions include:
- The RATS software
- RATSData (a stand-alone menu-driven data management utility program)
- A huge collection of RATS procedures and example programs, including worked examples from many popular econometrics textbooks.
- Extensive built-in Help systems
- Over 1,000 pages of printed documentation, including the Getting Started guide, the RATS User’s Guide and the RATS Reference Manual.
- Over 1,200 pages of documentation, including an Introduction, the RATS User’s Guide and the RATS Reference Manual. PDF’s of all documentation are always included; you can choose to get printed manuals for an added cost plus any added shipping.
RESOURCES FOR RATS AND CATS USERS
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.
PROCEDURES AND EXAMPLES
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.
RATS DISCUSSION FORUM
Our web-based RATS Software Forum is a useful venue 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.
See the RATS Discussion Forums page for more information.
NEWSLETTERS
We periodically publish a newsletter (called 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.
SOFTWARE UPDATES
We occasionally post patch files that allow licensed RATS users to download updates to more recent versions at no charge. See Software Updates for details.
KNOWN BUGS AND MANUAL ERRATA
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.
© Copyright 2024 Estima
Programma per l’analisi econometrica di serie temporali. Caratterizzato da eccellenti grafici e dalla disponibilità di molte routine ad-hoc, tra cui ARCH, GARCH e Cointegrazione.
