This paper predicts phases of the financial cycle by combining a continuous financial stress measure in a Markov switching framework. The debt service ratio and property market variables signal a transition to a high financial stress regime, while economic sentiment indicators provide signals...

The paper provides a novel Bayesian methodological framework to estimate structural VAR (SVAR) models with recursive identification schemes that allows for the inclusion of over-identifying restrictions. The proposed framework enables the researcher to elicit the prior on the non-zero...

We assess the existence of fiscal regime shifts in the U.K., Germany, and Italy, using Markov switching fiscal rules. On the basis of a newly built quarterly data set, our results show the existence of fiscal regimes shifts, sometimes coupled with regime switches also regarding monetary...

This study investigates the dynamics of the sovereign CDS term premium for five European countries. The CDS term premium can be regarded as a forward-looking measure of idiosyncratic sovereign default risk as perceived by financial markets. Using a Markov-switching unobserved component model, we...

We derive restrictions for Granger noncausality in Markov-switching vector autoregressive models and also show under which conditions a variable does not affect the forecast of the hidden Markov process. Based on Bayesian approach to evaluating the hypotheses, the computational tools for...

This paper describes a methodology to estimate the coefficients, to test specification hypotheses and to conduct policy exercises in multi-country VAR models with cross unit interdependencies, unit specific dynamics and time variations in the coefficients. The framework of analysis is Bayesian:...

The purpose of the paper is to develop a Regime-Switching Global Vector Autoregressive (RS-GVAR) model. The RS-GVAR model allows for recurring or non-recurring structural changes in all or a subset of countries. It can be used to generate regime-dependent impulse response functions which are...

Under inflation targeting inflation exhibits negative serial correlation in the United Kingdom, and little or no persistence in Canada, Sweden and New Zealand, and estimates of the indexation parameter in hybrid New Keynesian Phillips curves are either equal to zero, or very low, in all...

Bayesian inference in a time series model provides exact, out-of-sample predictive distributions that fully and coherently incorporate parameter uncertainty. This study compares and evaluates Bayesian predictive distributions from alternative models, using as an illustration five alternative...

A prediction model is any statement of a probability distribution for an outcome not yet observed. This study considers the properties of weighted linear combinations of n prediction models, or linear pools, evaluated using the conventional log predictive scoring rule. The log score is a concave...