Estimation Period (Temporal Causal Modeling)

By default, the estimation period starts at the time of the earliest observation and ends at the time of the latest observation across all series.

By start and end times

You can specify both the start and end of the estimation period or you can specify just the start or just the end. If you omit the start or the end of the estimation period, the default value is used.

• If the observations are defined by a date/time field, then enter values for start and end in the same format that is used for the date/time field.
• For observations that are defined by cyclic periods, specify a value for each of the cyclic periods fields. Each field is displayed in a separate column.
• If there is a date specification in effect for the active dataset, then you must specify a value for each component (such as Month) of the date specification. Each component is displayed in a separate column.
• When the observations are defined by record order, the start and end of the estimation period are defined by the row number (as displayed in the Data Editor) of the relevant case.

By latest or earliest time intervals

Defines the estimation period as a specified number of time intervals that start at the earliest time interval or end at the latest time interval in the data, with an optional offset. In this context, the time interval refers to the time interval of the analysis. For example, assume that the observations are monthly but the time interval of the analysis is quarters. Specifying Latest and a value of 24 for the Number of time intervals means the latest 24 quarters.

Optionally, you can exclude a specified number of time intervals. For example, specifying the latest 24 time intervals and 1 for the number to exclude means that the estimation period consists of the 24 intervals that precede the last one.