There are simple well-known conditions for the validity of regression and correlation as statistical tools. We analyse by examples the effect of nonstationarity on inference using these methods and compare them to model based inference using the cointegrated vector autoregressive model. Finally...

There are simple well-known conditions for the validity of regression and correlation as statistical tools. We analyse by examples the effect of nonstationarity on inference using these methods and compare them to model based inference. Finally we analyse some data on annual mean temperature and...

Yule (1926) introduced the concept of spurious or nonsense correlation, and showed by simulation that for some nonstationary processes, that the empirical correlations seem not to converge in probability even if the processes were indpendent. This was later discussed by Granger and Newbold...