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Empirical Analysis: Cointegration Models, Structural Breaks and Policy Reform<br />

With the additional outlier model, both for the French and the intervention<br />

price it is not possible to reject the null hypothesis of a unit root with structural<br />

break, occurred in August 1993. If two breaks are allowed, the situation is much<br />

less clear-cut; the 2001:08 break in the intervention price series coincides with the<br />

full implementation of Agenda 2000, but doesn’t correspond to the one in the<br />

French price. Provided that the change caused by the MacSharry reform is very<br />

likely to have had a strong immediate effect rather than a gradual one, as<br />

confirmed by visual inspection of the series, for these two prices the innovational<br />

outlier model, both allowing for one and two breaks, (according to which the<br />

French and the intervention price are both I(0) processes) seems less appropriate,<br />

(and indeed, the time of the break moves backwards to a date which has no<br />

political sense 80 ). For the US price it is possible to reject the unit root null<br />

hypothesis only in the AO model allowing for one break, only. This time the<br />

interpretation of the timing of the structural breaks is not immediate. The Zivot<br />

and Andrews test has been performed, as well (table 6.3). Both the French and the<br />

intervention prices turn out to be I(0) around a broken intercept. Nevertheless,<br />

remembering that the null hypothesis of unit root in this test excludes the presence<br />

of a structural break, and on the basis of the results of standard unit root tests<br />

carried out in the two subsamples identified as before and after the structural<br />

break constituted by the MacSharry reform (which, as recalled before, find<br />

evidence of nonstationarity; annex B), we conclude that the use of this test is not<br />

appropriate for the French and intervention price. For the US price it is not<br />

possible to reject the null hypothesis of a unit root process without structural<br />

break.<br />

Table 6.3 Zivot and Andrews (1992) tests<br />

AIC lagmethod TTest lag method<br />

Lags Time of t stat 5% Lags Time of t stat 5%<br />

the break critical value the break<br />

critical value<br />

swfrt 1 1993:07 -5.702** -4.80 1 1993:07 -5.702** -4.80<br />

pint t 1 1993:06 -6.042** -4.80 0 1993:06 -5.795** -4.80<br />

hrw t 1 1986:01 -4.686 -4.80 1 1986:01 -4.686 -4.80<br />

AIC/TTest lag method: AIC criterion/5% significance of the t-test used for lag selection<br />

***indicates rejection of the null hypothesis at 1%; ** at 5%; * at 10% significance<br />

In order to test for the presence of a unit root in the French price differentiated<br />

series, provided the structural break identified in the French price evidently<br />

80 While, for the French price, this might suggest the hypothesis of some “rational expectations” behaviour of<br />

market operators whose actions anticipate the following reduction in the intervention price, this is actually not<br />

the case since the same occurs for the intervention price, which is the very policy variable.<br />

99

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