On the Nature of SEM Estimates of ARMA Parameters.

Reexamined the nature of structural equation modeling (SEM) estimates of autoregressive moving average (ARMA) models, replicated the simulation experiments of P. Molenaar, and examined the behavior of the log-likelihood ratio test. Simulation studies indicate that estimates of ARMA parameters observed with SEM software are identical to those obtained by stochastic model preliminary estimation and are not true maximum likelihood estimates. (SLD)