View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Research Papers in Economics International Journal of Applied Econometrics and Quantitative Studies. Vol.1-1(2004) A COMPARISON OF CAUSALITY TESTS APPLIED TO THE BILATERAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONSUMPTION AND GDP IN THE USA AND MEXICO GUISAN, M.Carmen* Abstract Bilateral causality between Private Consumption and GDP in the USA and Mexico during the period 1960-2002 is analysed comparing Granger´s test, a modified version of Granger´s test, cointegration, TSLS and Hausman´s causality test. The main conclusion is that the modified version of Granger´s test performs better than the unmodified version, and also better than cointegration, to accept lagged causality in the Consumption equation. Besides that Hausman´s test is very often more useful to distinguish between bilateral and unilateral contemporaneous causality than TSLS. We conclude that there is a high degree of causal dependence of Private Consumption on GDP and a lower dependence in the case of the reverse relation. JEL classification: C5, C52, E2, O51, O57 Key words: Granger´s test, causality test, Mexico, the USA, Consumption and Gross Domestic Product, Consumption Models 1.- Introduction In this study we analyse bilateral causality between Private and Total Consumption and GDP in Mexico and the USA with the following methods: Granger´s causality test, modified version of Granger´s causality test proposed by Guisan(2003), cointegration, Two Stage Least Squares, and Hausman´s test. * Maria-Carmen Guisan is Professor of Econometrics and Director of Master in International Sectoral Economics at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain), http://www.usc.es/economet/guisan.htm, e-mail
[email protected] 115 Guisan, M.C.