Portable gretl

This is the portable edition of gretl - a software tool developed for users who frequently work with econometric analysis, by providing them with a bunch of useful features.

Since installation is not a prerequisite, you can save gretl on a USB flash drive or similar storage unit, and run it on any computer.

This way, no items are left behind on the hard drive or in the Windows Registry upon program removal. Also, you can keep the app in your pocket whenever you're on the move.

The interface of the program is represented by a common window where you can import sample files (Gretl, Greene, Ramanathan), user files, as well as import various items or append data, such as CSV, TXT, SPSS and SAS.

Creating a new data set can be done by specifying the number of observations and data set structure (cross-sectional, time series, or panel).

It is possible to show data set values, get summary statistics, build a frequency distribution or box plot, edit attributes and values, as well as to add a log and to define new variables.

A multitude of tools are available through gretl. For instance, you can create statistical tables and distribution graphs, find a p-value, plot a curve, run nonparametric tests and set a seed for random numbers.

You can locate a particular variable, define or edit data lists, add your own observations, export the variable labels to an external file, and transpose or sort data, just to name a few. There are dozens more options available in this program.

gretl runs on a low-to-moderate amount of CPU and system memory, so it shouldn't interfere with the runtime of active processes. It is very responsive to key strokes and mouse events, and includes a complete user manual. We have not encountered any problems in our testing; gretl did not hang, crash or pop up error dialogs. On the downside, the interface is not very user-friendly. To sum it up, gretl should please all users who prefer a wide range of tools and configuration options when dealing with econometric analysis.