SOFTWARE REVIEWS: GAUSSX: VERSION 3.4 1. INTRODUCTION

Software for econometrics can broadly be classified into three groups. First, there are menudriven packages such as MicroFit and PcGive. The main advantage of these is ease of use and the main disadvantage is inflexibility--unless it is on a menu, you cannot do it. Second, there are command-driven languages such as TSP and RATS. In these programs, the user enters a sequence of simple commands, each command including an optional set of parameters. The commands can either be executed one by one (interactive mode) or more typically are collected in a file and executed all at once (batch mode). Command-driven packages are less easy to use than menu-driven programs as commands can easily be mistyped, and this often causes obscure...