The DOI matches its Crossref record; 1 of the 1 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The Numerical Reliability of Econometric Software
Abstract
Numerous examples show that some econometric software packages contain serious flaws, and that users cannot safely assume that their software is accurate. A brief survey of the fundamentals of computer arithmetic discusses the sources of numerical error and emphasizes that computer arithmetic is not at all like pencil-and-paper arithmetic. Both users and developers of econometrics software should first pay attention to accuracy, and only later consider user-friendliness. Details are provided for assessing the accuracy of basic estimation routines, statistical distributions, and random number generators. More accuracy benchmarks are needed, especially for specialized econometric procedures.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Testing random number generators
L'Ecuyer, P. (1992) · Proceedings of the 24th conference on Winter simulation - WSC '92 · doi:10.1145/167293.167354 · Cited by 115
Cited by
Multivariate GARCH models: a survey
Bauwens, L., Laurent, S., & Rombouts, J. V. K. (2006) · Journal of Applied Econometrics · doi:10.1002/jae.842 · Cited by 2,045
Did Unilateral Divorce Laws Raise Divorce Rates? A Reconciliation and New Results
Wolfers, J. (2006) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.96.5.1802 · Cited by 950
Understanding Internet Usage: A Social-Cognitive Approach to Uses and Gratifications
Larose, R., Mastro, D., & Eastin, M. S. (2001) · Social Science Computer Review · doi:10.1177/089443930101900401 · Cited by 521
Verifying the Solution from a Nonlinear Solver: A Case Study
McCullough, B. D., & Vinod, H. D. (2003) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/000282803322157133 · Cited by 220
Self-citationMcCullough, B. D., McGeary, K. A., & Harrison, T. D. (2006) · Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking · doi:10.1353/mcb.2006.0061 · Cited by 173
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- McCullough, B. D., & Vinod, H. D.
- Venue
- Journal of Economic Literature
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 1999-06-01
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 633-665
- ISSN
- 0022-0515 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2121764011
- Cited by
- 168
- References
- 1
- FWCI
- 9.53
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The Numerical Reliability of Econometric Software. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1257/jel.37.2.633
- The paper
- McCullough, B. D., & Vinod, H. D. (1999). The Numerical Reliability of Econometric Software. Journal of Economic Literature. https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.37.2.633
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
