This paper presents a new nonlinear time series model that captures a post-recession 'bounce-back' in the level of aggregate output. While a number of studies have examined this type of business cycle asymmetry using recession-based dummy variables and threshold models, we relate the...

Using a fad model with Markov-switching heteroscedasticity in both the fundamental and fad components (UC-MS model), this paper examines the possibility that the 1987 stock market crash was an example of a short-lived fad. While we usually think of fads as speculative bubbles, what the UC-MS...

Using Bayesian tests for a structural break at an unknown break date, we search for a volatility reduction within the post-war sample for the growth rates of U.S. aggregate and disaggregate real GDP. We find that the growth rate of aggregate real GDP has been less volatile since the early...

We hope to answer three questions: Has there been a structural break in postwar U.S. real GDP growth towards stabilization? If so, when? What is the nature of this structural break? We employ a Bayesian approach to identify a structural break at an unknown changepoint in a Markov-switching model...

Though Hamilton's (1989) Markov-switching model has been widely estimated in various contexts, formal testing for Markov-switching is not straightforward. Univariate tests in the classical framework by Hansen (1992) and Garcia (1998) do not reject the linear model for GDP. We present Bayesian...

Following Hamilton [1989. A new approach to the economic analysis of nonstationary time series and the business cycle. Econometrica 57, 357-384], estimation of Markov regime-switching regressions typically relies on the assumption that the latent state variable controlling regime change is...

We investigate the nature of asymmetries in U.S. business cycle dynamics using a dynamic two-factor model of output, investment, and consumption that incorporates both the common stochastic trend implied by neoclassical growth theory and a common transitory component. This framework allows for...