Testing the autoregressive parameter with the t statistic

This paper considers a Gaussian first-order autoregressive process with unknown intercept where the initial value of the variable is a known constant. Monte Carlo simulations are used to investigate the sampling distribution of the t statistic for the autoregressive parameter when its value is in the neighborhood of unity. A small sigma asymptotic result is exploited in the construction of exact non-similar tests. The powers of non-similar tests of the random walk and other hypotheses are estimated for sample sizes typical in economic applications.