Practical Empirical Research Using gretl and hansl

Abstract

This article provides an introduction to the free open-source statistics and econometrics software gretl. The software is an attempt to bridge the different demands for teaching at different levels. Furthermore, it also provides functionalities required for professional work. We also introduce gretl's powerful and intuitive scripting language ‘hansl’. This article can be seen as an illustrated step-by-step guide that uses a real-life data analysis example. Finally, I estimate a vector autoregressive time-series model using gretl for structural analyses as well as for forecasting purposes.