IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jimfin/v20y2001i5p639-657.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Size distortions of tests of the null hypothesis of stationarity: evidence and implications for the PPP debate

Author

Listed:
  • Caner, M.
  • Kilian, L.

Abstract

Tests of the null hypothesis of stationarity against the unit root alternative play an increasingly important role in empirical work in macroeconomics and in international finance. We show that the use of conventional asymptotic critical values for stationarity tests may cause extreme size distortions, if the model under the null hypothesis is highly persistent. This fact calls into question the use of these tests in empirical work. We illustrate the practical importance of this point for tests of long-run purchasing power parity under the recent float. We show that the common practice of viewing tests of stationarity as complementary to tests of the unit root null will tend to result in contradictions and in spurious rejections of long-run PPP. While the size distortions may be overcome by the use of finite-sample critical values, the resulting tests tend to have low power under economically plausible assumptions about the half-life of deviations from PPP. Thus, the fact that stationarity is not rejected cannot be interpreted as convincing evidence in favor of mean reversion. Only in the rare case that stationarity is rejected do size-corrected tests shed light on the question of long-run PPP.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Caner, M. & Kilian, L., 2001. "Size distortions of tests of the null hypothesis of stationarity: evidence and implications for the PPP debate," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 639-657, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jimfin:v:20:y:2001:i:5:p:639-657
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261-5606(01)00011-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sephton, Peter S., 1995. "Response surface estimates of the KPSS stationarity test," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(3-4), pages 255-261, March.
    2. Kwiatkowski, Denis & Phillips, Peter C. B. & Schmidt, Peter & Shin, Yongcheol, 1992. "Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root : How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1-3), pages 159-178.
    3. Canzoneri, Matthew B. & Cumby, Robert E. & Diba, Behzad, 1999. "Relative labor productivity and the real exchange rate in the long run: evidence for a panel of OECD countries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 245-266, April.
    4. Elliott, Graham & Rothenberg, Thomas J & Stock, James H, 1996. "Efficient Tests for an Autoregressive Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(4), pages 813-836, July.
    5. Choi, In, 1994. "Residual-Based Tests for the Null of Stationarity with Applications to U.S. Macroeconomic Time Series," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(3-4), pages 720-746, August.
    6. Culver, Sarah E. & Papell, David H., 1999. "Long-run purchasing power parity with short-run data: evidence with a null hypothesis of stationarity," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 751-768, October.
    7. Murray, Christian J. & Papell, David H., 2002. "The purchasing power parity persistence paradigm," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 1-19, January.
    8. Culver, Sarah E & Papell, David H, 1997. "Is There a Unit Root in the Inflation Rate? Evidence from Sequential Break and Panel Data Models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(4), pages 435-444, July-Aug..
    9. B. P. M. McCabe & S. J. Leybourne & Y. Shin, 1997. "A Parametric approach to testing the null of cointegration," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 395-413, July.
    10. Jürgen Wolters & Timo Teräsvirta & Helmut Lütkepohl, 1998. "Modeling The Demand For M3 In The Unified Germany," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(3), pages 399-409, August.
    11. Diebold, Francis X & Senhadji, Abdelhak S, 1996. "The Uncertain Unit Root in Real GNP: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1291-1298, December.
    12. Rothman, Philip, 1997. "More Uncertainty about the Unit Root in U.S. Real GNP," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 771-780, October.
    13. Collins, Sean & Anderson, Richard, 1998. "Modeling U.S. Households' Demands for Liquid Wealth in an Era of Financial Change," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 30(1), pages 83-101, February.
    14. Nelson, Charles R. & Plosser, Charles I., 1982. "Trends and random walks in macroeconmic time series : Some evidence and implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 139-162.
    15. Engel, Charles & Kim, Chang-Jin, 1999. "The Long-Run U.S./U.K. Real Exchange Rate," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(3), pages 335-356, August.
    16. Ely, David P. & Robinson, Kenneth J., 1997. "Are stocks a hedge against inflation? International evidence using a long-run approach," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 141-167, February.
    17. Lewbel, Arthur, 1996. "Aggregation without Separability: A Generalized Composite Commodity Theorem," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 524-543, June.
    18. Baillie, Richard T. & Pecchenino, Rowena A., 1991. "The search for equilibrium relationships in international finance: the case of the monetary model," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 582-593, December.
    19. Lee, Kevin & Pesaran, M Hashem & Smith, Ron, 1997. "Growth and Convergence in Multi-country Empirical Stochastic Solow Model," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(4), pages 357-392, July-Aug..
    20. Alesina, Alberto & Perotti, Roberto, 1995. "Taxation and redistribution in an open economy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 961-979, May.
    21. repec:cup:etheor:v:10:y:1994:i:1:p:95-115 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Rudebusch, Glenn D, 1993. "The Uncertain Unit Root in Real GNP," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 264-272, March.
    23. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Chinn, Menzie D, 1997. "Further Investigation of the Uncertain Unit Root in GNP," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 15(1), pages 68-73, January.
    24. Caner, Mehmet, 1998. "A Locally Optimal Seaosnal Unit-Root Test," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(3), pages 349-356, July.
    25. Shin, Yongcheol, 1994. "A Residual-Based Test of the Null of Cointegration Against the Alternative of No Cointegration," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(1), pages 91-115, March.
    26. Moreno, Ramon, 1997. "Saving-investment dynamics and capital mobility in the US and Japan," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 837-863, December.
    27. Lee, Junsoo, 1996. "On the power of stationarity tests using optimal bandwidth estimates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 131-137, May.
    28. Matthew D. Shapiro & David W. Wilcox, 1996. "Mismeasurement in the Consumer Price Index: An Evaluation," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1996, Volume 11, pages 93-154, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Lothian, James R & Taylor, Mark P, 1996. "Real Exchange Rate Behavior: The Recent Float from the Perspective of the Past Two Centuries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(3), pages 488-509, June.
    30. Kuo, Biing-Shen & Mikkola, Anne, 1999. "Re-examining long-run purchasing power parity," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 251-266, February.
    31. Leybourne, S J & McCabe, B P M, 1994. "A Consistent Test for a Unit Root," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 12(2), pages 157-166, April.
    32. Bart Hobijn & Philip Hans Franses & Marius Ooms, 2004. "Generalizations of the KPSS‐test for stationarity," Statistica Neerlandica, Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, vol. 58(4), pages 483-502, November.
    33. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Lai, Kon S., 1998. "Parity reversion in real exchange rates during the post-Bretton Woods period," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 597-614, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francis Ahking, 2003. "Efficient unit root tests of real exchange rates in the post-Bretton Woods era," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 6(7), pages 1-12.
    2. Murray, Christian J. & Nelson, Charles R., 2000. "The uncertain trend in U.S. GDP," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 79-95, August.
    3. Kurozumi, Eiji, 2009. "Construction of Stationarity Tests with Less Size Distortions," Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 50(1), pages 87-105, June.
    4. César Calderón & Roberto Duncan, 2003. "Purchasing power parity in an emerging market economy: a long- span study for Chile," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 30(1 Year 20), pages 103-132, June.
    5. Vasco Gabriel, 2003. "Tests for the Null Hypothesis of Cointegration: A Monte Carlo Comparison," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 411-435.
    6. Engel, Charles, 2000. "Long-run PPP may not hold after all," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 243-273, August.
    7. Hwa-Taek Lee & Gawon Yoon, 2013. "Does purchasing power parity hold sometimes? Regime switching in real exchange rates," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(16), pages 2279-2294, June.
    8. Bergman, Michael & Cheung, Yin-Wong & Lai, Kon S., 2000. "Productivity shocks, monetary shocks, and the short- and long-run dynamics of exchange rates and relative prices," Working Papers 2000:4, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    9. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Chinn, Menzie D, 1997. "Further Investigation of the Uncertain Unit Root in GNP," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 15(1), pages 68-73, January.
    10. Cho, Cheol-Keun & Amsler, Christine & Schmidt, Peter, 2015. "A test of the null of integer integration against the alternative of fractional integration," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 187(1), pages 217-237.
    11. Jushan Bai & Serena Ng, 2001. "A New Look at Panel Testing of Stationarity and the PPP Hypothesis," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 518, Boston College Department of Economics.
    12. Kim, Soyoung & Lima, Luiz Renato, 2010. "Local persistence and the PPP hypothesis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 555-569, April.
    13. Kuo, Biing-Shen & Mikkola, Anne, 1999. "Re-examining long-run purchasing power parity," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 251-266, February.
    14. Jansson, Michael, 2004. "Stationarity Testing With Covariates," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 56-94, February.
    15. Culver, Sarah E. & Papell, David H., 1999. "Long-run purchasing power parity with short-run data: evidence with a null hypothesis of stationarity," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 751-768, October.
    16. Muller, Ulrich K., 2005. "Size and power of tests of stationarity in highly autocorrelated time series," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 128(2), pages 195-213, October.
    17. Darné, Olivier, 2009. "The uncertain unit root in real GNP: A re-examination," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 153-166, March.
    18. Diebold, Francis X & Kilian, Lutz, 2000. "Unit-Root Tests Are Useful for Selecting Forecasting Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 18(3), pages 265-273, July.
    19. Kim, Jae & Choi, In, 2015. "Unit Roots in Economic and Financial Time Series: A Re-Evaluation based on Enlightened Judgement," MPRA Paper 68411, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Dimitrios Malliaropulos & Ekaterini Panopoulou & Nikitas Pittis & Theologos Pantelidis, 2006. "The Contribution of Growth and Interest Rate Differentials to the Persistence of Real Exchange Rates," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp135, IIIS.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • F30 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - General
    • C51 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Construction and Estimation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jimfin:v:20:y:2001:i:5:p:639-657. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30443 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.