--- title: "Bayesian Unit Root Testing for Panel Data: BayesPanelUR" author: "Shikhar Tyagi, Arvind Pandey, Bhupendra Singh, Vrijesh Tripathi" date: "`r Sys.Date()`" output: rmarkdown::html_vignette vignette: > %\VignetteIndexEntry{Bayesian Unit Root Testing for Panel Data: BayesPanelUR} %\VignetteEngine{knitr::rmarkdown} %\VignetteEncoding{UTF-8} --- ```{r setup, include = FALSE} knitr::opts_chunk$set( collapse = TRUE, comment = "#>" ) library(BayesPanelUR) ``` ## 1. Introduction Unit root testing in panel time series datasets is crucial in econometrics, financial modeling, and social sciences. Traditional single-equation Dickey-Fuller tests often suffer from low statistical power, especially over short time horizons. Panel unit root tests exploit cross-sectional information to significantly boost test power. The `BayesPanelUR` package implements the Bayesian unit root test for Panel Autoregressive (PAR) time series models developed by **Kumar, Chaturvedi, and Afifa (2016)**. The testing procedure evaluates the difference stationarity ($H_0: \rho = 1$) against trend stationarity ($H_1: \rho \in (-a, 1)$) using the exact Posterior Odds Ratio (POR). ## 2. Model & Methodology Consider a panel time series observation $y_{i,t}$ for cross-sectional units $i = 1, \dots, n$ and time periods $t = 1, \dots, T$: $$y_{i,t} = \mu_i + \delta_i t + u_{i,t}$$ where $u_{i,t}$ is a stochastic error term following an AR(1) process: $$u_{i,t} = \rho u_{i,t-1} + \epsilon_{i,t}, \quad \epsilon_{i,t} \sim iid \, N(0, \tau^{-1})$$ Incorporating augmentation terms of order $p$, the model under the alternative hypothesis $H_1$ is given by: $$y_{i,t} - \rho y_{i,t-1} = \alpha_i + \beta_i t + \sum_{j=1}^p \theta_{i,j} \Delta y_{i,t-j} + \epsilon_{i,t}$$ and under the unit root null hypothesis $H_0: \rho = 1$: $$\Delta y_{i,t} = \delta_i + \sum_{j=1}^p \theta_{i,j} \Delta y_{i,t-j} + \epsilon_{i,t}$$ Using natural conjugate prior distributions, the Posterior Odds Ratio ($\beta_{01}$) is derived via analytical marginalization and 1D numerical quadrature over $\rho \in (-a, 1)$. ## 3. Package Usage Example We demonstrate `BayesPanelUR` using the included dataset `nps_nav`, which contains monthly Net Asset Value (NAV) records of Indian pension fund managers (ICICI, KM, SBI, UTI). ```{r example} # Load sample dataset data("nps_nav", package = "BayesPanelUR") head(nps_nav) # Extract matrix of NAV time series for 4 pension funds nav_mat <- as.matrix(nps_nav[, 2:5]) # Perform Bayesian panel unit root test with linear trend res <- bayes_panel_ur(nav_mat, p = 0) print(res) # View detailed summary of structural parameter estimates summary(res) ``` ## 4. Model with Augmentation Terms To capture serial correlation in first differences, an augmentation term of order $p = 1$ or $p = 2$ can be included: ```{r augmentation} # Test with augmentation order p = 2 res_aug <- bayes_panel_ur(nav_mat, p = 2) print(res_aug) ``` ## 5. Visualizing Posterior Density The posterior distribution of the pooled autoregressive coefficient $\rho$ can be visualized using the `plot()` S3 method: ```{r plot_posterior, fig.width = 6, fig.height = 4} plot(res_aug, type = "posterior") ``` ## 6. References - Kumar, J., Chaturvedi, A., & Afifa, U. (2016). Bayesian unit root test for panel data. *EERI Research Paper Series*, No. 14/2016, Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels.