Approximations to Some Finite Sample Distributions Associated with a First-Order Stochastic Difference Equation

Abstract

Edgeworth series expansions are obtained of the finite sample distributions of the least squares estimator and the associated t ratio test statistic in the context of a first-order noncircular stochastic difference equation. General formulae are given for these expansions up to 0(Th1) where T is the sample size and explicit representations of these in terms of the true parameters are derived up to 0(12). Some numerical comparisons of the approximations and the exact distributions are made in the case of the least squares estimator.