Questions tagged [stationarity]

A strictly stationary process (or time series) is one whose joint distribution is constant over time shifts. A weakly stationary (or covariance stationary) process or series is one whose mean and covariance function (variance and autocorrelation function) do not change over time.

A strictly stationary process (or time series) is one whose joint distribution is constant over time. That is, the joint distribution of any set of $k+1$ observations $\{x_t, ..., x_{t+k}\}$ does not depend on $t$. So the process "looks the same" probabilistically wherever you are in time.

A weakly stationary process or series is one whose mean, $E(x_t)$, and covariance function, $\text{Cov}(x_t, x_{t+k})$ (variance and autocorrelation function), are constant over time.

Strict stationarity does not imply weak stationarity (because mean, variance and/or autocorrelation of a strictly stationary process need not exist). Weak stationarity does not imply strict stationarity (because higher order moments of a weakly stationary process might be nonconstant over time).

Stationarity is an important concept in time series analysis. Time series data are often transformed to become stationary.

References:
Wikipedia - Stationary process
Investopedia - Stationary and nonstationary processes

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Stationary Process

I have some questions about stationary process and its statistical properties. If $\{X_t\}$ is a stationary process, then do the following equations hold? ($j$ is a…
Richard Lin
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Mean Square Convergence of a Linear Process Defined in Terms of a Stationary Time Series

I am following Brockwell and Davis (Introduction to Time Series and Forecasting, 3rd Edition). Chapter 2, Proposition 2.2.1 claims the following. If $\{Y_t\}$ is a stationary time series with mean zero and covariance $\gamma_Y$, and $\{\psi_j\}_{j =…
Somnath
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Unit root for bounded variable

I have a time series which is discreet and bounded (between 0 and 100). It’s actually also increasing over time, from low to high. When I test for a unit root, I find it. And yet I wonder if unit root tests on bounded variables even make sense?…
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Does covariance stationarity lead to mean stationarity necessarily?

Traditionally a weak stationary process is also called covariance stationary, but those 3 properties are exposed: $$E[Xt] = μ , \forall t$$ $$var(Xt) = \sigma^2, \forall t$$ $$cov(Xt, Xt−j) = \gamma_j, \forall t$$ that are respectively mean,…
caub
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Checking whether a given sample is stationary

Let $x[n]$ be some time series in 1D or $x[m,n]$ in 2D, of length $N$ (resp. $N^2$) How can I assess whether it is stationary? At least in the weak sense. I can check whether the stdev remains constant, but this is only a necessary condition.
yoki
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Is the autocovariance function of a stationary process finite for all lags?

We usually define the autocovariance function of a discrete-time weak stationary process as $\gamma(h) := \gamma(h,0) = \gamma(r-s,0) = \gamma(r, s) := \text{Cov}(X_r, X_s)$ with $r,s \in \mathbb{Z}$. Is it possible that for some lags $h \in…
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Stationarity and nonlinear time series

I want to forecast world market prices of several commodities. Different tests for linearity show that the prices of most commodities are nonlinear. A textbook (Teräsvirta et al., 2011, p.5) says the following: “In the linear univariate case, e.g.…
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Stationarity and Economic Models

In my limited experience of running economic models, I've come to find what seems to me like a paradox. Most models in the literature of, say, the inflation rate are run in levels. This is notwithstanding the fact that the data is generally…
Brad G.
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Stationarity achieved now what?

My data series got stationary at first difference. Now I need to make a new variable with Yt-Yt-1 but how do I accommodate the Trend and intercept as my series got stationary only when these two were included .Some suggest just differencing no…
Azam
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Resources to deal with non-stationary data

I am currently reading Introduction to Statistical Learning, and Applied Predictive Modelling. I'm also doing the John Hopkins course on Data Science. I haven't completed any of these yet. But one thing that seems to be common is that they all…
Graeme
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Stationary Process in Plain English

How would you describe stationary process in plain English to someone with no mathematical background, using real life examples? The target audience is adults with reasonable intelligence, but most have been out of school for years, if not decades.
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Testing the stationarity of the given process

Given $X_{t} = sin(pt + U_{t})$ where $U_{t}$ is uniformly distributed over $[0,2\pi]$. Check the stationarity of this process. It is given as non-stationary in the answer sheet. I was not able to understand their explanation. Here is what I have…
userNoOne
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Is there a minimum number of observations for a stationarity test to be meaningful?

Are 30 or 40 observations enough or we need more?
adrCoder
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First difference stationary process

I have a question regarding an I(1) process. Suppose we have the following equation: $$ Y_0 = \alpha_1Y_{-1}+\alpha_2Y_{-2}+\alpha_3Y_{-3}+...+\alpha_4Y_{-4} $$ $$ with \sum\limits_{i=1}^4 \alpha_{i} = 1 $$ How can I prove mathematically that Y is…
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I read that for a stationary process, Cov(Xt+h, Xt) should be a constant. What does it actually mean?

According to wiki, covariance is a measure of the joint variability of two random variables. Isnt Xt+h one particular value and Xt another value.. So what does it mean when you say covariance between these two values?
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