Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 May 2012
For many time series in empirical macro and finance, it is assumed that thelogarithm of the series is a unit root process. Since we may want to assumea stable growth rate for the macroeconomics time series, it seems natural topotentially model such a series as a unit root process with drift. Thisassumption implies that the level of such a time series is the exponentialof a unit root process with drift and therefore, it is of substantialinterest to investigate analytically the behavior of the exponential of aunit root process with drift. This paper shows that the sum of theexponential of a random walk with drift converges in distribution, afterrescaling by the exponential of the maximum value of the random walkprocess. A similar result was established in earlier work for unit rootprocesses without drift. The results derived here suggest the conjecturethat also in the case when the Dickey-Fuller test or the KPSS statistic isapplied to the exponential of a unit root process with drift, these testswill asymptotically indicate stationarity.