Has the "Swiss interest rate anomaly" persisted after the financial crisis? Regarding the hypothesis that the Swiss interest rate anomaly results from systemic risk anticipation, we discuss whether Switzerland remains an interest rate island in the wake of the financial crisis. We find evidence...

We test whether the relationship between the nominal exchange rate and the news in its underlying fundamentals has non-linear features. In order to do so, we develop a Markov switching model and apply it to a sample of low and high inflation countries. The empirical analysis shows that for the...

We develop a non-linear forecast combination rule based on copulas that incorporate the dynamic interaction between individual predictors. This approach is optimal in the sense that the resulting combined forecast produces the highest discriminatory power as measured by the receiver operating...

A growing literature uses changes in residual volatility for identifying structural shocks in vector autoregressive (VAR) analysis. A number of different models for heteroskedasticity or conditional heteroskedasticity are proposed and used in applications in this context. This study reviews the...

The role of expectations for economic fluctuations has received considerable attention in recent business cycle analysis. We exploit Markov regime switching models to identify shocks in cointegrated structural vector autoregressions and investigate different identification schemes for bi-variate...

This article presents a systematic and extensive empirical study on the presence of Markov switching dynamics in three dollar-based exchange rates. A Monte Carlo approach is adopted to circumvent the statistical inference problem inherent to the test of regime-switching behavior. Two data...

We estimate a Markow-switching dynamic factor model with three states based on six leading business cycle indicators for Germany preselected from a broader set using the Elastic Net soft-thresholding rule. The three states represent expansions, normal recessions and severe recessions. We show...

The paper studies the interaction between cyclical uncertainty and investment in a stochastic real option framework where demand shifts stochastically between three different states, each with different rates of drift and volatility. In our setting the shifts are governed by a three-state Markov...

Business cycle indicators are used to assess the economic situation of countries or regions. They are closely watched by the public, but are not easy to interpret. Does a current movement of the indicator signal a turning point or not? With the help of Markov Switching Models movements of...