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Initial-Condition-Robust Inference in Autoregressive Models

Donald W. K. Andrews, Ming Li, Yapeng Zheng

arXiv 10 Feb 2026 · Econometrics

arXiv:2602.09382 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper considers confidence intervals (CIs) for the autoregressive (AR) parameter in an AR model with an AR parameter that may be close or equal to one. Existing CIs rely on the assumption of a stationary or fixed initial condition to obtain correct asymptotic coverage and good finite sample coverage. When this assumption fails, their coverage can be quite poor. In this paper, we introduce a new CI for the AR parameter whose coverage probability is completely robust to the initial condition, both asymptotically and in finite samples. This CI pays only a small price in terms of its length when the initial condition is stationary or fixed. The new CI also is robust to conditional heteroskedasticity of the errors.

Citation extraction

15
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in-text mentions
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distinct cited
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Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Mikusheva, Anna (2007) Uniform inference in autoregressive models0.7373367%
2Andrews, Donald W. K. and Guggenberger, Patrik (2014) A conditional-heteroskedasticity-robust confidence interval for the autoregressive parameter self0.5113233%
3Andrews, Donald W. K. and Guggenberger, Patrik (2012) Asymptotics for LS, GLS, and feasible GLS statistics in an AR(1) model with conditional heteroskedasticity self0.5112250%
4Andrews, Donald W. K. and Cheng, Xu and Guggenberger, Patrik (2020) Generic results for establishing the asymptotic size of confidence sets and tests self0.5112250%
5Andrews, Donald W. K (1993) Exactly median-unbiased estimation of first order autoregressive/unit root models self0.40511100%
6Andrews, Donald W. K. and Chen, Hong-Yuan (1994) Approximately median-unbiased estimation of autoregressive models self0.40511100%
7Andrews, Donald W. K. and Li, Ming (2025) Inference in a stationary/nonstationary autoregressive time-varying-parameter model self0.40511100%
8Elliott, Graham and Stock, James H (2001) Confidence intervals for autoregressive coefficients near one0.40511100%
9Hansen, Bruce E (1999) The grid bootstrap and the autoregressive model0.40511100%
10Kim, Kiwhan and Schmidt, Peter (1993) Unit root tests with conditional heteroskedasticity0.40511100%

Showing the top 10 of 15 scored citations.