Testing the null hypothesis of no regime switching with an application to GDP growth rates

This paper presents tests for the null hypothesis of no regime switching in Hamilton's (1989) regime switching model. The test procedures exploit similarities between regime switching models, autoregressions with measurement errors, and finite mixture models. The proposed tests are computationally simple and, contrary to likelihood based tests, have a standard distribution under the null. When the methodology is applied to US GDP growth rates, no strong evidence of regime switching is found.