Methods and formulas for Autocorrelation

Select the method or formula of your choice.

ACF

The graphs for the autocorrelation function (ACF) of the ARIMA residuals include lines that represent the significance limits. Values that extend beyond the significance limits are statistically significant at approximately α = 0.05, and show evidence that the autocorrelation does not equal zero.

Formula

Notation

TermDescription
k lag; k = 1, 2,...
xt value of x at row t
mean of x
n number of observations in the series

Standard error of ACF

Formula

Notation

TermDescription
k lag; k = 1, 2, ...
n number of observations in the series
autocorrelation of lag m

t-statistics

Formula

Notation

TermDescription
autocorrelation at lag k; k = 1, 2, ...
standard error of the autocorrelation at lag k

Significance limits

Formula

Upper limit at lag k = t n−1; 0.975 × SE(rk )

Lower limit at lag k = t n−1; 0.025 × SE(rk )

Notation

TermDescription
SE(rk ) standard error of the autocorrelation at lag k
t n-1; 0.975 97.5th percentile of the t distribution with n – 1 degrees of freedom
t n-1; 0.025 2.5th percentile of the t distribution with n – 1 degrees of freedom

Ljung-Box Q statistic

Formula

Notation

TermDescription
n number of observations in a series
estimated autocorrelation at lag m; m = 1, 2, ..., k
klag; k = 1, 2, ...