[antoinegodin]

You will find my response to Jamel hereunder in order to clarify the bad wording we chose, but let me first answer to Gennaro.

The first point I want to make when discussion the choice of a software is that it should be open-source or at least free for download. The cost of software such as EViews but above all of Mathematica is clearly a disadvantage. But I also believe that having open-source software allows for much more flexibility if we feel that a plug-in is missing.

This is why I also thing that R is a good candidate. Indeed, it has a wide community of developers that could help us, if needed. Furthermore, R, like EViews, was designed to handle data and thus already has lots of nice functions and plug-ins. What is missing, to my understanding, is a solver for large system of non-linear equations.

Finally, I also agree that trying to convince everyone to use the same software is a loss of time. Also because everyone has its own habits and tricks when developing a model… If you allow me to point out the biggest advantage of Mathematica, to my view: analytical resolution. The thing allows you to obtain the analytical solution of some (not all) non-linear systems, which comes very handy when playing with the model.

As promised, my answer to Jamel:

Dear Jamel,

Thank you for your e-mail.

Let me first have a general response. The proposal you all received is certainly not an extensive list of all the topics open to debate and we welcome any new ones. We probably need to find a better place to discuss these, let me come back to you when I found a technical solution such as a forum or a blog (done!).

Regarding EViews, the wording should have been chosen more carefully. Our goal was to raise questions and certainly not to be dismissive. Of course, we are well aware, as stated in the proposal, that EViews allows to solve large models and is a very useful tool. My understanding, and it is limited as I have have not used EViews much, is that EViews doesn’t offer the flexibility that other softwares such as Matlab, Mathematica or R offer. For example, the error handling seems rather crude. Furthermore, linking this point with your second point, one way to include supply constraints would be to write the model using Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions between price and quantity. Does EViews allows such a formulation? I know Mathematica doesn’t and I had some trouble when trying to model such a feature. However, since Mathematica allows for very flexible coding, I could circumvent these limitations. That said, I’ll gladly accept any argument showing that my concerns regarding EViews are not founded.

[Author]

Posts