This paper suggests a new methodological approach to the analysis of cointegrated linear systems subject to changes in regime. We consider cointegrated vector autoregressive processes where Markovian shifts occur in the equilibrium mean and the drift of the system. A two-stage maximum likelihood...

This paper addresses the issues of identification and dating of the Euro-zone business cycle by using the Markov-switching approach innovated by Hamilton in his analysis of the US business cycle. Regime shifts in the stochastic process of economic growth in the Euro-zone are identified by...

We consider whether oil prices can account for business cycle asymmetries. We test for asymmetries based on the Markov switching autoregressive model popularized by Hamilton (1989), using the tests devised by Clements and Krolzig (2000). We find evidence against the conventional wisdom that...

The controversy over the selection of 'growth regressions' was precipitated by some remarkably numerous 'estimation' strategies, including two million regressions by Sala-i-Martin ["American Economic Review" (1997b) Vol. 87, pp. 178-183]. Only one regression is really needed, namely the general...

Structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) models have emerged as a dominant research strategy in empirical macroeconomics, but suffer from the large number of parameters employed and the resulting estimation uncertainty associated with their impulse responses. In this paper, we propose...

We establish the consistency of the selection procedures embodied in "PcGets", and compare their performance with other model selection criteria in linear regressions. The significance levels embedded in the "PcGets" Liberal and Conservative algorithms coincide in very large samples with those...

While there has been a great deal of interest in the modelling of non-linearities in economic time series, there is no clear consensus regarding the forecasting abilities of non-linear time-series models. We evaluate the performance of two leading non-linear models in forecasting post-war US...

Kevin Hoover and Stephen Perez take important steps towards resolving some key issues in econometric methodology. They simulate general-to-specific selection for linear, dynamic regression models, and find that their algorithm performs well in re-mining the ?Lovell database?. We discuss...