Between The Rock and a Hard Place: Regime Switching in the RelationshipBetween Short-Term Interest Rates and Equity Returns in the UK

We examine the relationship between short term interest rates and UK equity returns using a two regime Markov Switching EGARCH model. We find one high-return, low variance regime in which the conditional variance of equity returns responds persistently but symmetrically to equity return innovations. In the other, low-mean, highvariance, regime there is evidence that equity volatility responds asymmetrically and without persistence to shocks to equity returns. There is evidence of a regime dependent relationship between shorter maturity interest rate differentials and equity return volatility. Furthermore, there is evidence that events in the money markets influence the probability of transition across regimes