Tests for unit roots in univariate time series with level shifts are proposed and investigated. The level shift is assumed to occur at a known time. It may be a simple one-time shift which can be captured by a dummy variable or it may have a more general form which can be modeled by some general...

Unit root tests for time series with level shifts of general form are considered when the timing of the shift is unknown. It is proposed to estimate the nuisance parameters of the data generation process including the shift date in a first step and apply standard unit root tests to the...

We make use in this article of a testing procedure suggested by Robinson (1994) for testing deterministic seasonality versus seasonal fractional integration. A new test statistic is developed to simultaneously test both, the order of integration of the seasonal component and the need of seasonal...

A number of unit root tests which accommodate a deterministic level shift at a known point in time are compared in a Monte Carlo study. The tests differ in the way they treat the deterministic term of the DGP. It turns out that Phillips-Perron type tests have very poor small sample properties...

Two types of unit root tests which accommodate a structural level shift at a known point in time are extended to the situation where the break date is unknown. It is shown that for any estimator for the break date the tests have the same asymptotic distribution as the corresponding tests under...

We show in this article that fractionally integrated univariate models for GDP may lead to a better replication of business cycle characteristics. We firstly show that the business cycle features are clearly affected by the degree of integration as well as by the other short run components of...

We analyze daily changes of two log foreign exchange (FX) rates involving the Deutsche Mark (DEM) for the period 1975 - 1998, namely FX-rates measured against the US dollar (USD) and the Japanese yen (JPY). Ta account for volatility e1ustering we fit a GARCH(l,l)-model with leptokurtic...

This paper examines the relationship between unemployment, real oil price and real interest rates in Canada. Instead of following the classical approach based on I(0) stationarity or I(1) cointegrating relationships, we use fractional integration/cointegration techniques which allow for the...

We analyse in this article the monthly structure of the Brazilian inflation rate by means of fractionally integrated techniques. This series is characterized by strong government interventions to bring inflation to a low level. We use a testing procedure due to Robinson (1994) which allow us to...

A particular version of the tests of Robinson (1994) for testing stochastic cycles in macroeconomic time series is proposed in this article. The tests have a standard limit distribution and are easy to implement in raw time series. A Monte Carlo experiment is conducted, studying the size and the...