Wavelet Improvement of the Over-Rejection of Unit Root Test Under GARCH Errors: An Application to Swedish Immigration Data

In this article, we use the wavelet technique to improve the over-rejection problem of the traditional Dickey–Fuller tests for unit root when the data is associated with volatility like the GARCH(1, 1) effect. The logic of this technique is based on the idea that the wavelet spectrum decomposition can separate out information of different frequencies in the data series. We prove that the asymptotic distribution of the test in the wavelet environment is still the same as the traditional Dickey–Fuller type of tests. The finite sample property is improved when the data suffers from GARCH error. The investigation of the size property and the finite sample distribution of the test is carried out by Monte Carlo experiment. An empirical example with data on the net immigration to Sweden during the period 1950–2000 is used to illustrate the performance of the wavelet improved test under GARCH errors. The results reveal that using the traditional Dickey–Fuller type of tests, the unit root hypothesis is rejected while our wavelet improved test do not reject as it is more robust to GARCH errors in finite samples.