This paper develops a new test, the trinomial test, for pairwise ordinal data samples to improve the power of the sign test by modifying its treatment of zero differences between observations, thereby increasing the use of sample information. Simulations demonstrate the power superiority of the...

This paper develops a new test, the trinomial test, for pairwise ordinal data samples to improve the power of the sign test by modifying its treatment of zero di®erences between observations, thereby increasing the use of sample information. Simulations demonstrate the power superiority of the...

In this paper we propose a Bayesian analysis of seasonal unit roots in quarterly observed time series. Seasonal unit root processes are useful to describe economic series with changing seasonal fluctuations. A natural alternative model for similar purposes contains deterministic seasonal mean...

We consider tests for sudden changes in the unconditional volatility of conditionally heteroskedastic time series based on cumulative sums of squares. When applied to the original series these tests suffer from severe size distortions, where the correct null hypothesis of no volatility change is...

In applied economic research computable general equilibrium [CGE] models in which the behavior of economic agents are modeled, are widely used. In many CGE models, the Linear Expenditure System [LES] is used to model behavior of the household sector. The disadvantage of LES is that the Engel...

We examine the size properties of tests for causality in variance in the presence of structural breaks in volatility. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that these tests suffer from severe size distortions when such breaks are not taken into account. Pre-testing the series for...

We propose a novel statistic to test the rank of a matrix. The rank statistic overcomes deficiencies of existing rank statistics, like: necessity of a Kronecker covariance matrix for the canonical correlation rank statistic of Anderson (1951), sensitivity to the ordering of the variables for the...

The interest in business cycle asymmetry has been steadily increasing over the last fifteen years. Most research has focused on the different behaviour of macroeconomic variables during expansions and contractions, which by now is well documented. Recent evidence suggests that such a two-phase...

We propose a discussion index model (Stock and Watson, 2002) to fore- cast electricity demand for one hour to one week ahead. The model is particularly useful as it captures complicated seasonal patterns in the data. The forecast performance of the proposed method is illustrated with a simulated...

We consider the problem of testing for seasonal unit roots in monthly panel data. To this aim, we generalize the quarterly CHEGY test to the monthly case. This parametric test is contrasted with a new nonparametric test, which is the panel counterpart to the univariate RURS test that relies on...