Nonparametric Test for Volatility in Clustered Multiple Time Series

Contagion arising from clustering of multiple time series like those in the stock market indicators can further complicate the nature of volatility, rendering a parametric test (relying on asymptotic distribution) to suffer from issues on size and power. We propose a test on volatility based on the bootstrap method for multiple time series, intended to account for possible presence of contagion effect. While the test is fairly robust to distributional assumptions, it depends on the nature of volatility. The test is correctly sized even in cases where the time series are almost nonstationary (i.e., autocorrelation coefficient ≈1). The test is also powerful specially when the time series are stationary in mean and that volatility are contained only in fewer clusters. We illustrate the method in global stock prices data.