Introduction Eviews for Orientation course Econometrics
Contents
1. EViews File Edit Objects View Procs Quick Options Window Help _ Welcome to EViews If Path c teaching orientatie data If DB none WF none Figure 1 Eviews Main Window Eviews Help The Eviews Help system is comprehensive it encompasses nearly the entire user s guide Figure 2 shows the main help topics for Eviews novices Help Topics EViews 4 0 Help 21 x Contents Index Find Click a topic and then click Display Or click another tab such as Index 4 Demonstration w EViews Basics 2 Intro EViews Basics B Workfile Basics 2 Object Basics 2 Commands Basic Data Handling Working with Data 2 Intro Working with Data 2 Using Expressions 2 Working with Series B Working with Auto series B Working with Groups of Series B Working with Scalars Eviews Databases d Figure 2 Eviews 4 Help Table of Contents The Chapters of the Eviews Windows Help books can be long It is not possible to do a keyword search within a chapter in the Windows Help system However the Help system also contains pdf files which can be browsed by Chapter and which can be searched using Acrobat Reader using Ctrl F or the binocular icon within Acrobat Reader Use the Help function later to explore other options of EViews that are not discussed in this document Standard Windows functionality The Introduction to Eviews of the Eviews Help also explains Windows Basics2. 3 Conclusion pak CmMmoONnDnA aor Fw DY WN e e ww o m Or 1 Introduction This Eviews introduction is part of the material for a basic course in Econometrics It should be used together with a copy of the Eviews software a textbook and the corresponding datasets The datasets will be made available to all students via the computer network Since Eviews Econometric Views is widely used in the Econometrics curriculum and numerical examples in econometric textbooks are often based on Eviews results we have chosen the package for this course During the course the student has to make a number of computer exercises in order to understand the methods in practice EViews 4 is used to solve the exercises The faculty of Economics has a student licence for EViews 2 0 so EViews can be used at home too This lower level of EViews does not present major problems for this course Eviews 2 0 is an older program and does not always work well with long directory names and file names So you may have to change the names of some folders and files at home A more recent version of Eviews 3 1 for students is available for use at home for 30 Euro Ask the teacher Eviews 5 has become available in 2004 but Eviews 4 commands should continue to work also in Eviews 5 A student version of Eviews 5 is not available Eviews and its documentation are only available in English The Faculty of Economics also employs English versions of the Wind
3. View Procs Obje cts Print Name Freeze Sample Sheet Stats Spec GCA 4 D GCQ 2977 146 6 611982 3029 650 20 78296 3439 201 1175 500 2468 600 2469 200 310 9941 391 5229 0 342056 4 561628 1 737613 34 32301 Std Dev Skewness Kurtosis 4 295065 2217 427 0 116772 0 000000 Jarque Bera 148857 4 330 5991 4739148 7511220 50 50 Observations J Path c teaching orient datacarlsonthorne DB johnston WF macro95 Figure 9 Descriptive Statistics in a Group Window Suppose now we want to edit and export this output Then we should push the Freeze button of the Group window or we could use Object Freeze Output from Eviews main menu A Table window pops up in a spreadsheet format You can edit the output of the table after pushing the Edit button in the Table Window You can also change the appearance by changing the font and cell width in the table Once you are satisified with the results you may want to export them to Word First select the part of the table that you want to export with your mouse Then export this part of the table using Edit Copy from the main menu of Eviews see Figure 10 Eviews will ask whether you want to export the numbers formatted or unformatted Choose formatted if you do not want to do further computations with the numbers Finally imp
4. First 16K of file 1 959199951e 003 5 489581909e 002 3 083333969e 000 4 243332863e 000 1 161999969e 00 1 959300049e 003 5507131958e 002 3 566667080e 000 4 666666985e 000 1 175999985e 00 date FM1QQ FYFFQ FYPRQ GCDQ GCOMPO GCO GCSQ GDPI 1 959099976e 003 5 485562744e 002 2 559999943e 000 4 000000000e 000 1 119000015e 00 1 959400024e 003 5 437984619e 002 3 990000010e 000 5 000000000e 000 1 120000000e 00 5 380769043e 002 3 933332920e 000 5 000000000e 000 1 145000000e 00 a E Figure 3 Importing ASCII data from a textfile There is also a preview window to check that the correct data will be imported and to see that the data really are organized in columns If the data are not neatly organized in a matrix do not mark File laid out as rectangle If your ASCII data are not in the right format you should edit them in a text editor Eviews contains a primitive text editor Select File Open TextFile from the main menu and open Macro95 da0 a copy of Macro95 dat since the basic version of Eviews 4 does not allow opening dat files in this way to see how it looks in a text editor Much better freely availble text editors exist see e g OxEdit www oxedit com an editor that is also installed in the computer lab 2 3 4 Checking Imported Data and Saving the Workfile If all has been done correctly the names of the variables appear in the workfile window otherwise wrong names like ser01 ser02 etc are s
5. Quantitative Mi cro Software Anonymous 1997b Eviews 3 User s Guide Quantitative Micro Software Vogelvang B 2005 Econometrics Theory and Applications with Eviews Harlow Eng land Pearson Education 15
6. clicking on Print in the toolbar of that particular window but it is better to export them to another program like Word and make a simple report before sending the results to the printer 2 3 6 Command Window Data Transformations and expressions Transformations can most easily be specified in the white top window the so called Com mand window Type series lgcq log gcq which generates a new series 1cgq after you press the Enter key and computes the logs of the consumption series gcq or use series dgcq gcq gcq 1 which takes the first differences it subtracts consumption in quarter t 1 from consumption in quarter t Typing show dgcq in the Command window brings up the Series Window of dgcq This is a quick way to start checking whether your transformation was successful You can also transform series by clicking on the button Genr in the workfile window then e g only lgcq log gceq has to be specified Many other Eviews Expressions transformations functions and operators are available see the Function Reference of the main Help Reference menu The Command Window keeps record of the commands by maintaining a history list This can be an advantage if similar operations have to done repeatedly Old command lines can be selected adjusted and rerun simply select the line in the command window and press the Enter key Most procedures can be applied in the command window The Command reference of the main He
7. types of new objects and to rename and delete existing objects You can create a new Series if you want to type the data in yourself The Quick menu provides quick shortcuts for experienced Eviews users A useful appli cation of the Quick menu is provided in 82 3 7 The drop down menus under View Procs in the main Eviews menu are context sensitive The range of options depends on the object s selected at the moment of the analysis Similar View and Procs menus are also available in the windows of the objects themselves Check this out for the a Series object Double click on a variable name in the Workfile window an Eviews Series window pops up Under View you ll find the graphs and de scriptive statistics that we need in a first stage data analysis under Procs you ll find more advanced options like Exponential Smoothing Note that the same options are now available under View and Procs in the main Eviews menu Within a workfile it is possible to create other Objects like Groups of variables Eviews Groups are extremely useful objects The Eview Help says A group is simply a list of series identifiers It is not a copy of the data in the series Thus if you change the data for one of the series in the group you will see the changes reflected in the group A group is created very easily With the left handed mouse button you select one series first To create a group more series can be added to the selection by keeping Ctrl pus
8. B hi WF macro95 Figure 4 Multiple Line Graphs from Group Window and 17 2 on pages 826 and 827 in the book of Carlson and Thorne Check the sample if they do not correspond In order to use the resulting picture in another program you should save it as a Windows metafile with the extension wmf Use the Copy command under Edit in the main menu of the main Eviews window and choose Save Metafile to disk or Copy to disk file choose the wmf format then select a directory and choose a name for example eviewsgraph1 wnf The option Copy to clipboard is not advised The picture can subsequently be imported in a Word document using Insert Picture From File See Figure 5 You can also Edit the graph with Eviews Labels can be dragged to another place to a new place in the graph Click on the label hold the mouse button pressed and move the label The label text can been changed as well Double click on the label or use the right hand mouse button Clicking on the picture with the right hand mouse button or double clicking with the left hand button gives more options produces an Options window to change the general outlook for different types of graphs like a regression line in a scatter diagram or a zero Microsoft Word Document3 Picture gt kal Le From File Figure 5 Inserting Eviews picture in wmf format into Word line in a line diagram See Figure 6 for Eviews 3 and Figure 7 4 for Eviews 4
9. Graph Options Figure 6 Graph Options Eviews 3 2 3 9 Scatter diagram To create a scatter diagram select in the Group window Graph Scatter and the scatter type Optional is the regression line In Figure 8 there is no regression line 10 f Graph Options Automatic selection E Mriele Selies Figure 7 Graph Options Eviews 4 W EViews 095 e onderwys orientatie datacarlsonthorne Iim View Procs Objects SevelLabel Show Fetch Store Delete Genr Sample Range 1959 1 1995 2 Filter Default Eq None Sample 1981 1 1993 2 m Group UNTITLED Workfile MACRO95 Gi Freeze Sample Sheet Stats Spec Figure 8 A scatter plot from the Groups Window 2 3 10 Eviews Tables editing and Exporting Tables to Word At the end of this demonstration we show how to generate edit save and export numerical output of Eviews Re Show the group transgcq that we created in the section on Autoseries Look for transgcq in the Workfile window or create it as a new group using Quick Show and entering gcq d gcq 11 We create descriptive statistics from the pull down menu under View in the Group window View Descriptive Stats Common Sample The standard descriptive statistics of Eviews appear See Figure 9 File Edit Objects View Procs Quick Options Window Help group transgeq geq d gcq smpl 1981 1 1993 2 W Group TRANSGCQ Workfile MACROS5 olx
10. Introduction Eviews for Orientation course Econometrics Marius Ooms January 2002 update November 2004 Afdeling Econometrie vrije Universiteit amsterdam Abstract This document provides a short hands on introduction to the main features of the Eviews software version 4 and 3 Exercises are provided in a separate document This document is not perfect Corrections comments and questions are very welcome Acknowledgement This introduction is partly extracted from Vogelvang 2005 Contents 1 Introduction 1 1 Intranet and Internet 0 0 0 000 000 0000 000000004 2 The software EViews 21 Introduction ose saai 8 6b ap a kt ed Bea Ae tt 22 ENIC WS BASICS ata nok toh Ate Na ee Qo bn ee Mond a bee RA 2 3 An Eviews Basics Demonstration 2 0 0 2 2 3 1 Eviews Workfiles and Data Import 2 3 2 Creating a Workfille 0 000000 005s 2 3 3 Importing Data 6 05 i ey ce Fon wh ee RE ee 2 3 4 Checking Imported Data and Saving the Workfile 2 3 5 Eviews menus and Creation of Simple Objects Groups and Equations 2 3 6 Command Window Data Transformations and expressions 2 3 7 AutoSeries Changing Data points 0 2 3 8 Examples of EViews output Graphs and export Graphs to Word 2 3 9 Scatter diagram sos oc aas a ia es 2 3 10 Eviews Tables editing and Exporting Tables to Word 2 4 Advanced use of Eviews Help Examples Maximum Likelihood
11. ctory you have just chosen which is very convenient 2 3 3 Importing Data Now data can be imported in the workfile Click on Procs and Import and Read Text Lotus Excel in our situation the data are in a text file and browse for the file Macro95 dat that has to be imported Click OK and Eviews asks you to select from a range of input options see Figure 3 EViews asks whether the data file is organized in Columns or in Rows formerly called by observation or by variable If the data file contains the names of the variables only the number of variables in the file has to be filled in In our case there are 22 variables the first one being a date variable so we always know the dates of the corresponding observations in the same row of the data set ASCII Text Import Lx Names for series or Number of series if names in file Data order Rectangular file layout options 22 a S EAE v File laid out as ponia g FARES Efolumns to skip 0 Bows to skip 0 Series headers Delimiters Comment character of headers including names before data 1 Treat multiple Misc options delimiters as one _ Quote with single not Sample to import vi Tab Drop strings don t make NA Reset sample to Comma _ Numbers in are negative _ Curent sample l Allow commas in numbers _ Workfile range 5j Currency _ To end of range _ Custom Text for NA NA Preview
12. een in the workfile The different variables are called Series in Eviews even if the observations are not ordered according to time in which case Eviews labels them as undated or irregular series Series are Eviews Objects that we use most often Statistical and econometric methods can now be used to analyze the variables Extra data can be imported at a later stage Double click a series name with the left mouse button A new window with its own buttons appears See the options under View check a spreadsheet View and a graphical view of the Series and see whether the data have been imported correctly If your are satisfied with the imported data you should Save the Current Workfile using File Save from Eviews Main Window To reuse your workfile in a next session start again by clicking on File Then the names of the last used workfiles are visible in a history list and one can select directly a workfile from this list It is also possible to double click on the name of the workfile in the Microsoft explorer or Norton Windows Commander Then EViews starts with that workfile if the extension wfl has been associated with the EViews program in your file browser 2 3 5 Eviews menus and Creation of Simple Objects Groups and Equations Once you have successfully loaded data into a workfile it is time to browse through the special options of the main Eviews menu of Figure 1 again The Object drop down menu allows you to create all
13. for people who are not familiar with the Windows system Eviews works as a standard Windows program like Windows Explorer It has the advantage that all menus are text based so you don t have to learn the meaning of new icons Pointing and clicking with the mouse is sufficient to browse through all the options and to perform many tasks In standard circumstances left clicking on an item selects an Eviews object right clicking a selected object opens a menu Double clicking an object opens the specific Econometric View of an object Many of the standard Windows editing keys Ctrl C Copy Ctri X Cut Ctrl V Paste ctri Z Undo last edit action work as expected A general Undo button to correct your own faults is not available and the program is not entirely robust on the network Therefore save your results regularly as it is not impossible that the program crashes unexpectedly and all what has been done is lost 2 3 An Eviews Basics Demonstration By repeating the actions of this Demonstration you will get to know most of the basic concepts of Eviews Workfiles Objects Series Sample Expressions Series Auto Series Groups Graphs compare the table of Contents in Figure 2 Knowing these basics is neces sary to find your own way in Eviews later on We discuss how to 1 create Workfiles setting a Sample and Import Data 2 save Workfiles 3 navigate most of the Eviews windows 4 create simple Eviews Objects like Groups 5 use E
14. hed down and clicking with the left hand mouse button on the relevant variable names after which it becomes a group by selecting Open selected under View One window and Open group See also Figure 8 below which shows an example of a group selection in the background Workfile window If you want to specify an equation object you should click on the name on the left hand side variable of the equation first When you specify a regression equation later on it has to be the first variable in the list It is also possible to click on the selected variable names with the right hand mouse but ton Under View and Procs many possibilities arise to analyse the group group statistics various graph options etc also regression equations are simply formed After a procedure has been applied e g least squares one can proceed with the analysis with new possibilities given under View again e g residual tests coefficient tests The best way to learn the various possibilities of a procedure is to click on the various buttons and to see what the possibilities are for the object in question The structure is logical and the help function is often adequate provided you know the basic terms an techniques of course Remember to save the workfile at the end of the session so that everything what has been done transformed variables equations maybe groups etc is available in the next session Each result object can be sent to the laser printer by
15. ing m1 maximum likelihood function that is the most important member of this object For user manual help see Help Contents The Log likelihood LogL 13 Object For reference manual help see Help Help Reference Object Reference Logl In order to use the examples of the manuals we have to create a workfile and example series We do this preparatory work in the command window a 1900 2000 series x 3 rnorm Z 2x rnorm 2 0 2 series y x z rnorm create series Now we can start to apply the examples of the basic Eviews user Help system The first example creates the loglikelihood using the main menu This is an example of the type that you find near the beginning of the Help Chapters by user tasks and estimation methods in the Contents Index of the Help Eviews Help topics System To create a LogL Object use the menus Object New Object LogL Then you should enter the following lines into your log likelihood object to be more specific in the Likelihood Specification View of the LogL object logl logl1 res y c 1 c 2 x c 3 z var c 4 z c 5 logl1 log dnorm res sqrt var log var 2 param c 1 1 c 2 1 c 3 1 c 4 1 c 5 1 Then simply click the Estimate button in the likelihood window toolbar to open the Esti mation Options dialog By default EViews uses the values stored in the coefficient vector c Q prior to estimation The default values are zero which results in zero values for the
16. lp menu provides all the commands Once you know some commands this can save you time For example a quick way to re import the data is to type read macro95 dat 22 in the command window provided the file macro95 dat is in the current Eviews Path see status line at bottom Main Window After generating many Eviews subwindows it is sometime hard to find the command window on your screen You can always retrace the command window by clicking Window on the main menu of the main Eviews window The command window is always no 1 in that list 2 3 7 AutoSeries Changing Data points It is not always necessary to transform variables and save the results in a separate series Transformed data enlarge the contents of the workfile It is also possible to use the Au toSeries Automatically generated Series feature of Eviews For example the specification of d gcq in the specification of a group or in the specification of an equation refers to the first dif ferences i e the changes over 1 period of gcq without generating observations in a new variable permanently We shall see how this works by looking at the effect of a change in one of the observations of the series gcq on the Auto observations in the AutoSeries d gcq Generate a new group consisting of gcq and d gcq Type group transgcq gcq d gcq show transgcq in the command window A new group titled transgcq has been formed Open the Spread sheet View of transgcq Click on View Sp
17. ort the Eviews output in Word using Edit Paste See Figure 11 In Windows language the last operations are described as Copy the contents of the Eviews table to the Windows clipboard Paste the contents from the Windows clipboard into your Word document The Paste icon on Word s main toolbar shows a picture of the clipboard and a sheet of paper being removed see Figure 11 12 KEGA File Edit Objects View Procs Quick Options window Help group transgeq geq d geq smpl 1981 1 19 Figure 10 Exporting contents of an Eviews Table e Edt view Insert Format Tools Table Window Help x CY tae 2 c z Ca Redo Paste Ctrl Normal Gut Gries ERJ Gopy GH FG FaN Paste Cells Ctrl Paste Special Paste as Hypeninik Clear Delete Select All ctrl A Find Replace Ctril H Go To UKS i i a EAN Figure 11 Importing contents of an Eviews Table in Word 2 4 Advanced use of Eviews Help Examples Maximum Likelihood The help files for advanced objects often describe two ways to estimate models The first user manual examples show how to create an object using menus and then tell what to enter in the Object Window Many other reference manual examples just tell you the Eviews commands i e the commands that should be entered in the command window Here we describe how to use the Eviews Help examples for the LogL loglikelihood object and the correspond
18. ows operating system That is why we have not attempted to write this introduction in Dutch Please look up English words in the documentation that you really don t understand After following the instructions in this document hands on you should be able to learn the operation of other procedures in Eviews more easily 1 1 Intranet and Internet This text and corresponding data and procedures will be available in different formats in on the internet site http www feweb vu nl econometriclinks orientatie An extensive list of econometric links is permanently available on http econometriclinks com or http www feweb vu nl econometriclinks It provides links to collections of online datasets code journals textbooks and more In particular http www feweb vu nl econometriclinks software html presents an up to date list of links to econometric and statistical software packages with links to different freely available Eviews tutorials The Department of Econometrics of the Free University has its site on http www feweb vu nl ectrie The Eviews homepage is at http www eviews com This is a very useful site as software upgrades can be downloaded freely from its download section 2 The software EViews 2 1 Introduction EViews Econometric Views is described in this text Eviews is a widely used program in education government and industry It originated from the program TSP Time Series Processor http www tspin
19. readsheet in the Group window of transgcq Edit the values of one of the observations of gcq Click on Edit in the Group window of transgcq click on the cell of gcq that you want to change The corresponding value appears near the top of the window Change the value and push Enter on your keyboard The corresponding values of d gcq change as well Note that you cannot edit the values of d gcq Now you know why Note that you also could have used Quick button of the main menu to bring up the previous spreadsheet view Use Quick Show and type gcq d gcq in the resulting Show window and press OK You can then change the name of the group by pushing the Name button in the group window and entering the name transgcq AutoSeries can also involve more complicated expressions like d log gcq which com putes the first differences of the logs of gcq 2 3 8 Examples of EViews output Graphs and export Graphs to Word First an example is given of Multiple Graphs Line in an EViews Group window The series gcq and gidpq have been opened as a group first These graphs are then created in the group window under View See Figure 4 These graphs should correspond to Figures 17 1 Eile Edit Objects View Procs Quick Options Window Help ad macro95 dat 22 Group UNTITLED Workfile MACRO95 Jol xj View Procs Objects Print Name Freeze Sample Sheet Stats Spec EERE EES oe ee Il Path e onderwys orientatie datacarlsonthorne D
20. t data This will create the first objects a number of series In the first session one has to import data into the workfile An existing workfile can be opened in any EViews session later on EViews can import data in a variety of formats like ASCII text and Excel To import the data one has to know how the data has been organized in the file The data files for this course have the standard spreadsheet organization The observations for the different variables are arranged in columns with variables names on top 2 3 2 Creating a Workfile Here is how you start working with Eviews on the ASCII dataset in the text file into Macro95 dat which is available in the folder DataCarlsonThorne This file contains quar terly data on 22 US macroeconomic variables running from 1959 1 to 1995 2 Re Start EViews in Windows Click on File and New Then click Workfile A window appears with questions about the data the frequency and the sample period Click on the correct frequency Quarterly and fill in the correct Start date and End date Click OK and change the name Untitled in Macro95 by using File SaveAs Choose a directory where you have the permission to save your results The workfile gets the Eviews extension wfl The new workfile is now saved as Macro95 Do not forget to tick mark Update Default Directory This changes the Path Setting in the status line at the bottom of the Eviews Window EViews will start the next session in the same dire
21. tl com Nowadays Eviews and TSP coexist with Eviews specializing in user friendliness and TSP specializing in speed scientific documentation and numerical accuracy Originally intended for time series data Eviews is now also fit for the analysis of cross section data and panel data Eviews provides most standard econometric techniques The Eviews terminology for its procedures follows the standard of most Econometrics textbooks This terminology may differ slightly from the standard statistics terminology Moreover some standard statistics procedures like the BoxPlots are not yet implemented in Eviews 4 EViews produces pictures and tables that can easily be imported in word processing systems like Word Scientific WorkPlace or MikTex 2 2 EViews Basics Eviews is started and closed like other Windows programs In a standard installation you will find it via the Window Start Menu on the bottom of your screen for example via Start Programs Eviews Eviews 4 The Main Eviews Window will pop up Figure 1 shows this menu The Main Menu options File Edit Window and Help follow the standard Windows conventions Objects View Procs Quick and Options incorporate the special Eviews features The bottom line or status line of the main window provides additional info on the status of various settings of the program The only relevant part at this point is the Path information This tells you in which folder Eviews looks for input files first
22. variance series var which makes that the series of loglikelihood values logl1 cannot be computed and initial estimates cannot be obtained If a param statement is included in the specification the values specified in the statement will be used instead This is a necessary addition to the Eviews example The second way is to create the loglikelihood object i c with name hsmodel add its members i c the series logl1 res and var and do the estimation only by commands in the command window These commands can also be used in Eviews programs logl hsmodel hsmodel append logl1 hsmodel append res y c 1 c 2 x c 3 z hsmodel append var c 4 z7c 5 hsmodel append logli log dnorm res sqrt var log var 2 hsmodel append param c 1 1 c 2 1 c 3 1 c 4 1 c 5 1 hsmodel ml 14 This is an example of the type that you find in the Reference Manual Help Help Reference and that you find near the end of the Help Chapters by Estimation Method in the Contents Index of the Help Eviews Help topics System Remember that these object oriented com mands with dots should be typed in the Command Window Window Command 3 Conclusion This introduction is not complete In the coming weeks we shall provide exercises to help you get the necessary skills and to help you understand the econometric concepts discussed in the relevant chapters of the textbook References Anonymous 1997a Eviews 3 Command and Programming Reference
23. xpressions in the Command window 6 perform standard data tranformations 7 create adjust and export Graphs At this stage of the course we cannot use econometric procedures but some preliminary runs can be done with the data that are provided with the book We can perform a straightforward data analysis graphs can be made correlations can be computed data can be seasonally adjusted etc 2 3 1 Eviews Workfiles and Data Import The Chapter titled Workfile basics of the Eviews Help system states At the heart of the EViews design is the concept of an object In brief objects are collections of related information and operations that are bundled together into an easy to use unit Virtually all of your work in EViews will involve using and manipulating various objects EViews holds all of its objects in object containers You can think of object containers as filing cabinets or organizers for the various objects with which you are working The most important object container in EViews is the workfile and your first step in any project will be to create a new workfile or to load an existing workfile into memory Therefore the workfile is the starting point in EViews We create a new workfile for every new project Within workfiles one works with objects like series equations groups of variables graphs tables etc All these objects are part of the workfile So the first thing to do in EViews is to create the workfile and to impor
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