A change in level of a non-stationary time series

Abstract

Suppose that observations zsubt of a time series are available at equally spaced time intervals. The authors consider the problem of making inferences about a possible shift in level of the series associated with the occurrance of an event E at some particular time. For example, the observations might be of some economic indicator and one might suspect a change in level to occur in a particular interval because of a change in fiscal policy. Alternatively, zsubt could be the daily output of a chemical process and the event E might be a change in the supplier of raw material.