COWLES FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS
AT YALE UNIVERSITY

Box 208281
New Haven, CT 06520-8281

COWLES FOUNDATION DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 824R

"Conditional and Unconditional Statistical Independence"

Peter C.B. Phillips

January 1987
Revised December 1987

Conditional independence almost everywhere in the space of the conditioning variates does not imply unconditional independence, although it may well imply unconditional independence of certain functions of the variables. An example that is important in linear regression theory is discussed in detail. This involves orthogonal projections on random linear manifolds, which are conditionally independent but not unconditionally independent under normality. Necessary and sufficient conditions are obtained under which conditional independence does imply unconditional independence.