Model selection and associated issues of post-model selection inference present well known challenges in empirical econometric research. These modeling issues are manifest in all applied work but they are particularly acute in multivariate time series settings such as cointegrated systems where multiple interconnected decisions can materially affect the form of the model and its interpretation. In cointegrated system modeling, empirical estimation typically proceeds in a stepwise manner that involves the determination of cointegrating rank and autoregressive lag order in a reduced rank vector autoregression followed by estimation and inference. This paper proposes an automated approach to cointegrated system modeling that uses adaptive shrinkage techniques to estimate vector error correction models with unknown cointegrating rank structure and unknown transient lag dynamic order. These methods enable simultaneous order estimation of the cointegrating rank and autoregressive order in conjunction with oracle-like efficient estimation of the cointegrating matrix and transient dynamics. As such they offer considerable advantages to the practitioner as an automated approach to the estimation of cointegrated systems. The paper develops the new methods, derives their limit theory, discusses implementation, reports simulations, and presents an empirical illustration with macroeconomic aggregates.

In the context of testing the specification of a nonlinear parametric regression function, we adopt a nonparametric minimax approach to determine the maximum rate at which a set of smooth alternatives can approach the null hypothesis while ensuring that a test can uniformly detect any alternative in this set with some predetermined power. We show that a smooth nonparametric test has optimal asymptotic minimax properties for regular alternatives. As a by-product, we obtain the rate of the smoothing parameter that ensures rate-optimality of the test. We show that, in contrast, a class of nonsmooth tests, which includes the integrated conditional moment test of Bierens (1982, Journal of Econometrics 20, 105–134), has suboptimal asymptotic minimax properties.

We propose nonparametric estimators for conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) and conditional expected shortfall (CES) associated with conditional distributions of a series of returns on a financial asset. The return series and the conditioning covariates, which may include lagged returns and other exogenous variables, are assumed to be strong mixing and follow a nonparametric conditional location-scale model. First stage nonparametric estimators for location and scale are combined with a generalized Pareto approximation for distribution tails proposed by Pickands (1975, Annals of Statistics 3, 119–131) to give final estimators for CVaR and CES. We provide consistency and asymptotic normality of the proposed estimators under suitable normalization. We also present the results of a Monte Carlo study that sheds light on their finite sample performance. Empirical viability of the model and estimators is investigated through a backtesting exercise using returns on future contracts for five agricultural commodities.

We develop general conditions for rates of convergence and convergence in distribution of iterative procedures for estimating finite-dimensional parameters. An asymptotic contraction mapping condition is the centerpiece of the theory. We illustrate some of the results by deriving the limiting distribution of a two-stage iterative estimator of regression parameters in a semiparametric binary response model. Simulation results illustrating the computational benefits of the first-stage iterative estimator are also reported.We thank a co-editor and two referees for comments and criticisms that led to significant improvements in this paper. We also thank Roger Klein for providing us with Gauss code to compute his estimator.

An analytical formula is derived to approximate the finite sample bias of the ordinary least-squares (OLS) estimator of the autoregressive parameter when the underlying process has a unit root. It is found that the bias is expressible in terms of parabolic cylinder functions which are easy to compute. Numerical evaluation of the formula reveals that the approximation is very accurate. The derived formula inspires a heuristic approximation, obtained by leastsquares fitting of the asymptotic bias. More importantly, the formula proves analytically that the bias declines at a rate which is slower than the consistency rate, thus explaining some previous simulation findings. A case where the bias increases with the sample size is also given.

We study a general class of semiparametric estimators when the infinite-dimensional nuisance parameters include a conditional expectation function that has been estimated nonparametrically using generated covariates. Such estimators are used frequently to e.g., estimate nonlinear models with endogenous covariates when identification is achieved using control variable techniques. We study the asymptotic properties of estimators in this class, which is a nonstandard problem due to the presence of generated covariates. We give conditions under which estimators are root-n consistent and asymptotically normal, derive a general formula for the asymptotic variance, and show how to establish validity of the bootstrap.

We show that the adaptive Lasso is oracle efficient in stationary and nonstationary autoregressions. This means that it estimates parameters consistently, selects the correct sparsity pattern, and estimates the coefficients belonging to the relevant variables at the same asymptotic efficiency as if only these had been included in the model from the outset. In particular, this implies that it is able to discriminate between stationary and nonstationary autoregressions and it thereby constitutes an addition to the set of unit root tests. Next, and important in practice, we show that choosing the tuning parameter by Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) results in consistent model selection.

However, it is also shown that the adaptive Lasso has no power against shrinking alternatives of the form c/T if it is tuned to perform consistent model selection. We show that if the adaptive Lasso is tuned to perform conservative model selection it has power even against shrinking alternatives of this form and compare it to the plain Lasso.

The classical definitions of GARCH-type processes rely on strong assumptions on the first two conditional moments. The common practice in empirical studies, however, has been to test for GARCH by detecting serial correlations in the squared regression errors. This can be problematic because such autocorrelation structures are compatible with severe misspecifications of the standard GARCH. Numerous examples are provided in the paper. In consequence, standard (quasi-) maximum likelihood procedures can be inconsistent if the conditional first two moments are misspecified. To alleviate these problems of possible misspecification, we consider weak GARCH representations characterized by an ARMA structure for the squared error terms. The weak GARCH representation eliminates the need for correct specification of the first two conditional moments. The parameters of the representation are estimated via two-stage least squares. The estimator is shown to be consistent and asymptotically normal. Forecasting issues are also addressed.

This paper investigates the asymptotic theory for a factor GARCH (generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity) model. Sufficient conditions for asymptotic stability and existence of moments are established. These conditions allow for volatility spillover and integrated GARCH. We then show the strong consistency and asymptotic normality of the quasi–maximum likelihood estimator (QMLE) of the model parameters. The results are obtained under the finiteness of the fourth-order moment of the innovations.

This paper proposes a new approach to modeling heteroskedastidty which enables the modeler to utilize information conveyed by data plots in making informed decisions on the form and structure of heteroskedasticity. It extends the well-known normal/linear/homoskedastic models to a family of non-normal/linear/heteroskedastic models. The non-normality is kept within the bounds of the elliptically symmetric family of multivariate distributions (and in particular the Student's t distribution) that lead to several forms of heteroskedasticity, including quadratic and exponential functions of the conditioning variables. The choice of the latter family is motivated by the fact that it enables us to model some of the main sources of heteroskedasticity: “thicktails,” individual heterogeneity, and nonlinear dependence. A common feature of the proposed class of regression models is that the weak exogeneity assumption is inappropriate. The estimation of these models, without the weak exogeneity assumption, is discussed, and the results are illustrated by using cross-section data on charitable contributions.

Let (X1, Y1), …, (Xn, Yn) be independent and identically distributed random variables and let l(x) be the unknown p-quantile regression curve of Y conditional on X. A quantile smoother ln(x) is a localized, nonlinear estimator of l(x). The strong uniform consistency rate is established under general conditions. In many applications it is necessary to know the stochastic fluctuation of the process {ln(x) – l(x)}. Using strong approximations of the empirical process and extreme value theory, we consider the asymptotic maximal deviation sup0≤x≤1 |ln(x) − l(x)|. The derived result helps in the construction of a uniform confidence band for the quantile curve l(x). This confidence band can be applied as a econometric model check. An economic application considers the relation between age and earnings in the labor market by means of parametric model specification tests, which presents a new framework to describe trends in the entire wage distribution in a parsimonious way.

This paper develops a fully modified OLS (FM-OLS) estimator for cointegrating polynomial regressions, i.e., regressions that include as explanatory variables deterministic variables, integrated processes, and integer powers of integrated processes. The stationary errors are allowed to be serially correlated and the regressors are allowed to be endogenous. The paper extends the fully modified estimator of Phillips and Hansen (1990) from cointegrating regressions to cointegrating polynomial regressions. The FM-OLS estimator has a zero-mean Gaussian mixture limiting distribution that allows for standard asymptotic inference. Wald and LM specification tests as well as a KPSS-type test for cointegration are derived. The theoretical analysis is complemented by a simulation study which shows that this FM-OLS estimator, as well as tests based upon it, perform well in the sense that the performance advantages over OLS are largely similar to the performance advantages of FM-OLS over OLS in standard cointegrating regressions.

We consider the problem of estimating measures of precision of shrinkage-type estimators such as their risk or distribution. The notion of shrinkage-type estimators here refers to estimators such as the James–Stein estimator and Lasso-type estimators, in addition to “thresholding” estimators such as, e.g., Hodges' so-called superefficient estimator. Although the precision measures of such estimators typically can be estimated consistently, we show that they cannot be estimated uniformly consistently (even locally). This follows as a corollary to (locally) uniform lower bounds on the performance of estimators of the precision measures that we obtain in the paper. These lower bounds are typically quite large (e.g., they approach ½ or 1 depending on the situation considered). The analysis is based on some general lower risk bounds and related general results on the (non)existence of uniformly consistent estimators also obtained in the paper.A preliminary draft of the results in Section 3 of this paper was written in 1999.

We study asymptotic properties of the local Whittle estimator of the long memory parameter for a wide class of fractionally integrated nonlinear time series models. In particular, we solve the conjecture posed by Phillips and Shimotsu (2004, Annals of Statistics 32, 656–692) for Type I processes under our framework, which requires a global smoothness condition on the spectral density of the short memory component. The formulation allows the widely used fractional autoregressive integrated moving average (FARIMA) models with generalized autoregressive conditionally heteroskedastic (GARCH) innovations of various forms, and our asymptotic results provide a theoretical justification of the findings in simulations that the local Whittle estimator is robust to conditional heteroskedasticity. Additionally, our conditions are easily verifiable and are satisfied for many nonlinear time series models.We thank Liudas Giraitis for providing the manuscript by Dalla, Giraitis, and Hidalgo (2006). We are grateful to the two referees and the editor for their detailed comments, which led to substantial improvements. We also thank Michael Stein for helpful comments on an earlier version. The work is supported in part by NSF grant DMS-0478704.

A local limit theorem is proved for sample covariances of nonstationary time series and integrable functions of such time series that involve a bandwidth sequence. The resulting theory enables an asymptotic development of nonparametric regression with integrated or fractionally integrated processes that includes the important practical case of spurious regressions. Some local regression diagnostics are suggested for forensic analysis of such regresssions, including a local R2 and a local Durbin–Watson (DW) ratio, and their asymptotic behavior is investigated. The most immediate findings extend the earlier work on linear spurious regression (Phillips, 1986, Journal of Econometrics 33, 311–340) showing that the key behavioral characteristics of statistical significance, low DW ratios and moderate to high R2 continue to apply locally in nonparametric spurious regression. Some further applications of the limit theory to models of nonlinear functional relations and cointegrating regressions are given. The methods are also shown to be applicable in partial linear semiparametric nonstationary regression.

We establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for covariance stationarity of ARCH(∞), for both the levels and the squares. The result applies to any form of the conditional variance coefficients. This includes GARCH(p,q) and also specifications with hyperbolically decaying coefficients, such as the autoregressive coefficients of the autoregressive fractionally integrated moving average model. The covariance stationarity condition for the levels rules out long memory in the squares.I thank Peter M. Robinson for useful comments on previous versions of the paper. Also, I am grateful to the co-editor (Bruce E. Hansen) and an anonymous referee whose suggestions greatly improved the paper.

This paper studies the statistical properties of vector autoregressions (VAR's) for quite general multiple time series which are integrated processes of order one. Functional central limit theorems are given for multivariate partial sums of weakly dependent innovations and these are applied to yield first-order asymptotics in nonstationary VAR's. Characteristic and cumulant functionals for generalized random processes are introduced as a means of developing a refinement of central limit theory on function spaces. The theory is used to find asymptotic expansions of the regression coefficients in nonstationary VAR's under very general conditions. The results are specialized to the scalar case and are related to other recent work by the author [21].

We consider statistical tests concerning various relationships between two absolute concentration curves (ACCs). In particular, we consider tests for determining if the two ACCs coincide, if one is above another in a specified order, or if they do not intersect without specifying which one is above/below the other one. These problems are of interest in the context of marginal conditional stochastic dominance (MCSD). Constructing statistical tests for the MCSD relies on ideas and also on their modifications developed by Linton, Maasoumi, and Whang (2005, Review of Economic Studies 72, 735–765) in the context of stochastic dominance for distribution functions. Our theoretical considerations are supplemented with a simulation study.

In this paper we consider generalized method of moments–based (GMM-based) estimation and inference for the panel AR(1) model when the data are persistent and the time dimension of the panel is fixed. We find that the nature of the weak instruments problem of the Arellano–Bond (Arellano and Bond, 1991, Review of Economic Studies 58, 277–297) estimator depends on the distributional properties of the initial observations. Subsequently, we derive local asymptotic approximations to the finite-sample distributions of the Arellano–Bond estimator and the System estimator, respectively, under a variety of distributional assumptions about the initial observations and discuss the implications of the results we obtain for doing inference. We also propose two Lagrange multiplier–type (LM-type) panel unit root tests.

For a certain class of martingales, convergence to a mixture of normal distributions is established under convergence in distribution for the conditional variance. This is less restrictive in comparison with the classical martingale limit theorem, where one generally requires convergence in probability. The extension partially removes a barrier in the applications of the classical martingale limit theorem to nonparametric estimation and inference with nonstationarity and enhances the effectiveness of the classical martingale limit theorem as one of the main tools to investigate asymptotics in statistics, econometrics, and other fields. The main result is applied to investigate limit behavior of the conventional kernel estimator in a nonlinear cointegrating regression model, which improves existing works in the literature.