Is the Spurious Regression Problem Spurious?

Abstract

So-called "spurious regression" relationships between random-walk (or strongly autoregressive) variables are generally accompanied by clear signs of severe autocorrelation in their residuals. A conscientious researcher would therefore not end an investigation with such a result, but would likely re-estimate with an autocorrelation correction. Simulations show, for several typical cases, that the test-rejection statistics for the re-estimated relationships are very close to the true values, so do not yield results of the spurious type.