A new test is proposed for the null of absence of serial correlation. The test uses a data-driven smoothing parameter. The resulting test statistic has a standard limit distribution under the null. The smoothing parameter is calibrated to achieve rate-optimality against several classes of...

This paper develops theoretical results for the estimation of radial basis function neural network specifications, for dependent data, that do not require iterative estimation techniques. Use of the properties of regression based boosting algorithms is made. Both consistency and rate results are...

Testing the rank of a matrix of estimated parameters is key in a large variety of econometric modelling scenarios. This paper describes general methods to test for the rank of a matrix, and provides details on a variety of modelling scenarios in the econometrics literature where these tests are...

Identification in the context of multivariate state space modelling involves the specification of the dimension of the state vector. One identification approach requires an estimate of the rank of a Hankel matrix. The most frequently used approaches of rank determination rely on information...

In this paper we consider 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 estimator depends on the distributional properties of the...

Panel datasets have been increasingly used in economics to analyse complex economic phenomena. One of the attractions of panel datasets is the ability to use an extended dataset to obtain information about parameters of interest which are assumed to have common values across panel units....

In this paper we show that the Quasi ML estimation method yields consistent Random and Fixed Effects estimators for the autoregression parameter ρ in the panel AR(1) model with arbitrary initial conditions even when the errors are drawn from heterogenous distributions. We compare both...

This paper proposes a simple direct testing procedure to distinguish a linear unit root process from a globally stationary three-regime self-exciting threshold autoregressive process. We derive the asymptotic null distribution of the Wald statistic, and show that it does not depend on unknown...

This paper investigates GLS detrending procedures for unit root tests against nonlinear stationary alternative hypotheses where deterministic components are assumed present in the series under investigation. It is found that the proposed procedures have considerable power gains in a majority of...

The paradigm of a factor model is very appealing and has been used extensively in economic analyses. Underlying the factor model is the idea that a large number of economic variables can be adequately modelled by a small number of indicator variables. Throughout this extensive research activity...