Likelihood-based inference for weak exogeneity in I(2) cointegrated VAR models

This article develops limit theory for likelihood analysis of weak exogeneity in I(2) cointegrated vector autoregressive (VAR) models incorporating deterministic terms. Conditions for weak exogeneity in I(2) VAR models are reviewed, and the asymptotic properties of conditional maximum likelihood estimators and a likelihood-based weak exogeneity test are then investigated. It is demonstrated that weak exogeneity in I(2) VAR models allows us to conduct asymptotic conditional inference based on mixed Gaussian distributions. It is then proved that a log-likelihood ratio test statistic for weak exogeneity in I(2) VAR models is asymptotically .2 distributed. The article also presents an empirical illustration of the proposed test for weak exogeneity using Japan's macroeconomic data.