Efficient inference for parameters of unobservable periodic autoregressive time series

This paper considers estimating the model coefficients when the observed periodic autoregressive time series is contaminated by a trend. The proposed Yule–Walker estimators are obtained by a two-step procedure. In the first step, the trend is estimated by a weighted local polynomial, and the residuals are obtained by subtracting the trend estimates from the observations; in the second step, the model coefficients are estimated by the well-known Yule–Walker method via the residuals. It is shown that under certain conditions such Yule–Walker estimators are oracally efficient, i.e., they are asymptotically equivalent to those obtained from periodic autoregressive time series without a trend. An easy-to-use implementation procedure is provided. The performance of the estimators is illustrated by simulation studies and real data analysis. In particular, the simulation studies show that the proposed estimator outperforms that obtained from the residuals when the trend is estimated by kernel smoothing without taking the heteroscedasticity into consideration.