Testing for a unit root in an AR(p) signal observed with MA(q) noise when the MA parameters are unknown

Shin and Sarkar (1993, 1994) studied the problem of testing for a unit root in an AR(p) signal observed with MA(q) noise when the MA parameters are known. In this paper we consider the case when the MA parameters are unknown and to be estimated. Test statistics are defined using unit root parameter estimates based on three different estimation methods of Hannan and Rissanen (1982), Kohn (1979) and Shin and Sarkar (1995). An AR(p) process contaminated by MA(q) noise is a .estricted ARMA model, for which Shin and Sarkar (1995) derived an easy-to-compute Newton- Raphson estimator The two-stage estimation p.ocedu.e of Hannan and Rissanen (1982) is used to compute initial parameter estimates in implementing the iterative estimation methods of both Shin and Sarkar (1995) and Kohn (1979). In a simulation study we compare the relative performance of these unit root tests with respect to both size and power for p=q=1.