Panagiotis Mantalos

A simple investigation of the Granger-causality test in integrated-cointegrated VAR systems

The size and power of various generalization tests for the Granger-causality in integrated-cointegrated VAR systems are considered. By using Monte Carlo methods, properties of eight versions of the test are studied in two different forms, the standard form and the modified form by Dolado & Lütkepohl (1996) in a study confined to properties of the Wald test only. In their study as well as in ours, both the standard and the modified Wald tests are shown to perform badly especially in small samples. We find, however, that the corrected LR tests exhibit correct size even in small samples. The power of the test is higher when the true VAR(2) model is estimated, and the modified test loses information by estimating the extra coefficients. The same is true when considering the power results in the VAR(3) model, and the power of the tests is somewhat lower than those in the VAR(2).

Bootstrapped Johansen tests for cointegration relationships: A graphical analysis

Using Monte Carlo methods together with the bootstrap critical values, we have studied the properties of two tests (Trace and Lmax), derived by Johansen (1988) for testing for cointegration in VAR systems. Regarding the size of the tests, the results show that both of the test methods perform satisfactorily when there are mixed stationary and nonstationary components in the model. The analyses of the power functions indicate that both of the test methods can effectively detect the presence of cointegration vector(s). Finally, when considering the size and power properties, we could not find any noticeable differences between the two test methods.

The effect of spillover on the Granger causality test

In this paper, we investigate the properties of the Granger causality test in stationary and stable vector autoregressive models under the presence of spillover effects, that is, causality in variance. The Wald test and the WW test (the Wald test with Whites proposed heteroskedasticity-consistent covariance matrix estimator imposed) are analyzed. The investigation is undertaken by using Monte Carlo simulation in which two different sample sizes and six different kinds of data-generating processes are used. The results show that the Wald test over-rejects the null hypothesis both with and without the spillover effect, and that the over-rejection in the latter case is more severe in larger samples. The size properties of the WW test are satisfactory when there is spillover between the variables. Only when there is feedback in the variance is the size of the WW test slightly affected. The Wald test is shown to have higher power than the WW test when the errors follow a GARCH(1,1) process without a spillover effect. When there is a spillover, the power of both tests deteriorates, which implies that the spillover has a negative effect on the causality tests.

Garch-Type Models and Performance of Information Criteria

This article discusses the ability of information criteria toward the correct selection of different especially higher-order generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) processes, based on their probability of correct selection as a measure of performance. Each of the considered GARCH processes is further simulated at different parameter combinations to study the possible effect of different volatility structures on these information criteria. We notice an impact from the volatility structure of time series on the performance of these criteria. Moreover, the influence of sample size, having an impact on the performance of these criteria toward correct selection, is observed.

Interval estimation for a binomial proportion: a bootstrap approach

This paper discusses the classic but still current problem of interval estimation of a binomial proportion. Bootstrap methods are presented for constructing such confidence intervals in a routine, automatic way. Three confidence intervals for a binomial proportion are compared and studied by means of a simulation study, namely: the Wald confidence interval, the Agresti–Coull interval and the bootstrap-t interval. A new confidence interval, the Agresti–Coull interval with bootstrap critical values, is also introduced and its good behaviour related to the average coverage probability is established by means of simulations.

The effect of the GARCH(1, 1) on autocorrelation tests in dynamic systems of equations

Using Monte Carlo methods, the properties of systemwise generalizations of the Breusch–Godfrey test for autocorrelated errors are studied when there are some kinds of GARCH effects among the errors. The analysis, regarding the size of the test, reveals that the GARCH have considerable effects of the properties of the test regarding the size, especially in large systems of equations. The corrected LR tests, however, have been shown to perform satisfactorily in small systems when the errors are white noise or they have low GARCH effects, whilst the commonly used TR2 test behaves badly even in single equations. All tests perform badly, however, when the number of equations increases and the GARCH effect is strong. As regards the power of the test, the GARCH was not found to have any significant effects on the power properties of the test.

Forecasting ARMA models: a comparative study of information criteria focusing on MDIC

This paper deals with the implementation of model selection criteria to data generated by ARMA processes. The recently introduced modified divergence information criterion is used and compared with traditional selection criteria like the Akaike information criterion (AIC) and the Schwarz information criterion (SIC). The appropriateness of the selected model is tested for one- and five-step ahead predictions with the use of the normalized mean squared forecast errors (NMSFE).

Bootstrapping the augmented Dickey-Fuller test for unit root using the MDIC

In this paper, we consider the bootstrap procedure for the augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) unit root test by implementing the modified divergence information criterion (MDIC, Mantalos et al. [An improved divergence information criterion for the determination of the order of an AR process, Commun. Statist. Comput. Simul. 39(5) (2010a), pp. 865–879; Forecasting ARMA models: A comparative study of information criteria focusing on MDIC, J. Statist. Comput. Simul. 80(1) (2010b), pp. 61–73]) for the selection of the optimum number of lags in the estimated model. The asymptotic distribution of the resulting bootstrap ADF/MDIC test is established and its finite sample performance is investigated through Monte-Carlo simulations. The proposed bootstrap tests are found to have finite sample sizes that are generally much closer to their nominal values, than those tests that rely on other information criteria, like the Akaike information criterion [H. Akaike, Information theory and an extension of the maximum likelihood principle, in Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Information Theory, B.N. Petrov and F. Csáki, eds., Akademiai Kaido, Budapest, 1973, pp. 267–281]. The simulations reveal that the proposed procedure is quite satisfactory even for models with large negative moving average coefficients.

The effect of spillover on the Johansen tests for cointegration: a Monte Carlo analysis

This paper investigates the effect of spillover (i.e., causality in variance) on the Johansen tests for cointegration by conducting a Monte Carlo experiment where 16 different data generating processes (DGP) are used and a number of factors that might affect the properties of the Johansen cointegration tests are varied. The result from the simulation study clearly shows that spillover effect leads to an over-rejection of the true null hypothesis. Hence, in the presence of spillover it becomes very hard to make inferential statements since it will often lead to erroneous claims that cointegration relationships exist.