Improving market-based forecasts of short-term interest rates: time-varying stationarity and the predictive content of switching regime-expectations

  • Modeling short-term interest rates as following regime-switching processes has become increasingly popular. Theoretically, regime-switching models are able to capture rational expectations of infrequently occurring discrete events. Technically, they allow for potential time-varying stationarity. After discussing both aspects with reference to the recent literature, this paper provides estimations of various univariate regime-switching specifications for the German three-month money market rate and bivariate specifications additionally including the term spread. However, the main contribution is a multi-step out-of-sample forecasting competition. It turns out that forecasts are improved substantially when allowing for state-dependence. Particularly, the informational content of the term spread for future short rate changes can be exploited optimally within a multivariate regime-switching framework.

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Metadaten
Author:Ralf Ahrens
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30-9631
Parent Title (German):Center for Financial Studies (Frankfurt am Main): CFS working paper series ; No. 1999,14
Series (Serial Number):CFS working paper series (1999, 14)
Document Type:Working Paper
Language:English
Year of Completion:1999
Year of first Publication:1999
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2005/06/13
Tag:forecasting; interest rates; peso problem; regime-switching; term structure
GND Keyword:Nichtlineare Zeitreihenanalyse; Zinsfuß; Prognose
HeBIS-PPN:197809235
Institutes:Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / Center for Financial Studies (CFS)
Dewey Decimal Classification:3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft
JEL-Classification:C Mathematical and Quantitative Methods / C3 Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models / C32 Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions (Updated!)
C Mathematical and Quantitative Methods / C5 Econometric Modeling / C53 Forecasting and Other Model Applications
Licence (German):License LogoDeutsches Urheberrecht