Logistic smooth transition and Markov switching autoregressive models of a logistic transform of the monthly US unemployment rate are estimated by Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. The Markov switching model is identified by constraining the first autoregression coefficient to differ across...

This paper proposes an empirical Bayes approach for Markov switching autoregressions that can constrain some of the state-dependent parameters (regression coefficients and error variances) to be approximately equal across regimes. By flexibly reducing the dimension of the parameter space, this...