This paper considers a class of nonparametric autoregressive models with
nonstationarity. We propose a nonparametric kernel test for the conditional
mean and then establish an asymptotic distribution of the proposed test. Both
the setting and the results differ from earlier work on nonparametric
autoregression with stationarity. In addition, we develop a new bootstrap
simulation scheme for the selection of a suitable bandwidth parameter involved
in the kernel test as well as the choice of a simulated critical value. The
finite-sample performance of the proposed test is assessed using one simulated
example and one real data example.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-AOS698 the Annals of
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org