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I think this comment reflects the fact that a lot of pen and pencil linear algebra/stats/econometrics all uses one-based indexing.

There are a few times where I’ve had to formally write out a zero-based indexing scheme of a given expression because python indexing can seem so weird in this case. For example, “lag zero” just sounds like a funny way of talking about lag 1 (to me). Of course, if you’re predicting y_t+1 then it sort of makes sense that y_t[+0] would be paired with B_0.

Then there is the whole thing about how, say, range(5) will return 0,1,2,3,4 and NOT 5.

All of this makes sense once you use python for a while but if you spend most of your time writing with pencil then it will probably take some adjustment.


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