By incorporating the Harvey accumulator into the large approximate dynamic factor framework of Doz et al. (2006), we are able to construct a coincident index of financial conditions from a large unbalanced panel of mixed frequency financial indicators. We relate our financial conditions index,...

This paper examines maximum likelihood estimation via hill climbing and the expectations maximization (EM) algorithm in the context of Hamilton's Markov switching framework. The techniques are explained in detail and are followed by a discussion of both analytic and computational issues. Both...

Markov models introduce persistence in the mixture distribution. In time series analysis, the mixture components relate to different persistent states characterizing the state-specific time series process. Model specification is discussed in a general form. Emphasis is put on the functional form...