Robust causality test of infinite variance processes

This paper develops a robust causality test for time series with infinite variance innovation processes. First, we introduce a measure of dependence for vector nonparametric linear processes, and derive the asymptotic distribution of the test statistic by Taniguchi et al. (1996) in the infinite variance case. Second, we construct a weighted version of the generalized empirical likelihood (GEL) test statistic, called the self-weighted GEL statistic in the time domain. The limiting distribution of the self-weighted GEL test statistic is shown to be the usual chi-squared one regardless of whether the model has finite variance or not. Some simulation experiments illustrate satisfactory finite sample performances of the proposed test. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.