Аннотация:Abstract An extension of Hamilton's Markov switching techniques (Hamilton, J. B., 1989, A new approach to the economic analysis of nonstationary time series and the business cycle, Econometrica, 57, 357–84) is used to describe and analyse stock market returns. Using new tests, very strong evidence is found for switching behaviour. A major innovation is to use a multivariate specification that allows examination of whether the price/dividend ratio has marginal predictive power for stock market returns after accounting for state-dependent switching. We find strong evidence of predictability. The response of returns to the past price/dividend ratio is strongly asymmetric - about four times larger in the low-return state than in the high-return state. A second innovationis to allow the probability of transitions from one regime to another to depend on economic variables; again there is an asymmetric response to the past price/dividend ratio.
