Abstract
In this paper, fractional integrating dynamics in the return and the volatility series of stock market indices are investigated. The investigation is conducted using wavelet ordinary least squares, wavelet weighted least squares and the approximate Maximum Likelihood estimator. It is shown that the long memory property in stock returns is approximately associated with emerging markets rather than developed ones while strong evidence of long range dependence is found for all volatility series. The relevance of the wavelet-based estimators, especially, the approximate Maximum Likelihood and the weighted least squares techniques is proved in terms of stability and estimation accuracy.