p: a positive integer specifying the autoregressive order
M: a positive integer specifying the number of regimes
params: a real valued vector specifying the parameter values. Should have the form θ=(ϕ1,0,...,ϕM,0,φ1,...,φM,σ,α,ν), where (see exceptions below):
ϕm,0= the (d×1) intercept (or mean) vector of the mth regime.
φm=(vec(Am,1),...,vec(Am,p))(pd2×1).
if cond_dist="Gaussian" or "Student":: σ=(vech(Ω1),...,vech(ΩM))
$(Md(d + 1)/2 \times 1)$.
if cond_dist="ind_Student" or "ind_skewed_t":: σ=(vec(B1),...,vec(BM)(Md2×1).
α= the (a×1) vector containing the transition weight parameters (see below).
if cond_dist = "Gaussian"):: Omit ν from the parameter vector.
if cond_dist="Student":: ν2 is the single degrees of freedom parameter.
if cond_dist="ind_Student":: ν=(ν1,...,νd)(d×1), νi2.
if cond_dist="ind_skewed_t":: ν=(ν1,...,νd,λ1,...,λd)(2d×1), νi2 and λi∈(0,1).
$(M - 1 \times 1)$, where $\alpha_m$ $(1\times 1), m=1,...,M-1$ are the transition weight parameters.
weight_function="logistic":: α=(c,γ)
$(2 \times 1)$, where $c\in\mathbb{R}$ is the location parameter and $\gamma >0$ is the scale parameter.
weight_function="mlogit":: α=(γ1,...,γM)((M−1)k×1), where γm(k×1), m=1,...,M−1 contains the multinomial logit-regression coefficients of the mth regime. Specifically, for switching variables with indices in I⊂{1,...,d}, and with p~∈{1,...,p} lags included, γm contains the coefficients for the vector zt−1=(1,z~min{I},...,z~max{I}), where z~i=(yit−1,...,yit−p~), i∈I. So k=1+∣I∣p~
where $|I|$ denotes the number of elements in $I$.
weight_function="exponential":: α=(c,γ)
$(2 \times 1)$, where $c\in\mathbb{R}$ is the location parameter and $\gamma >0$ is the scale parameter.
weight_function="threshold":: α=(r1,...,rM−1)
$(M-1 \times 1)$, where $r_1,...,r_{M-1}$ are the thresholds.
weight_function="exogenous":: Omit α from the parameter vector.
AR_constraints:: Replace φ1,...,φM with ψ as described in the argument AR_constraints.
mean_constraints:: Replace ϕ1,0,...,ϕM,0 with (μ1,...,μg) where μi,(d×1) is the mean parameter for group i and g is the number of groups.
weight_constraints:: If linear constraints are imposed, replace α with ξ as described in the argument weigh_constraints. If weight functions parameters are imposed to be fixed values, simply drop α
from the parameter vector.
identification="heteroskedasticity":: σ=(vec(W),λ2,...,λM), where W(d×d) and λm(d×1), m=2,...,M, satisfy Ω1=WW′ and Ωm=WΛmW′, Λm=diag(λm1,...,λmd), λmi>0, m=2,...,M, i=1,...,d.
B_constraints:: For models identified by heteroskedasticity, replace vec(W) with vec~(W)
that stacks the columns of the matrix $W$ in to vector so that the elements that are constrained to zero are not included. For models identified by non-Gaussianity, replace $vec(B_1),...,vec(B_M)$ with similarly with vectorized versions $B_m$ so that the elements that are constrained to zero are not included.
Above, ϕm,0 is the intercept parameter, Am,i denotes the ith coefficient matrix of the mth regime, Ωm denotes the positive definite error term covariance matrix of the mth regime, and Bm
is the invertible (d×d) impact matrix of the mth regime. νm is the degrees of freedom parameter of the mth regime. If parametrization=="mean", just replace each ϕm,0 with regimewise mean μm. vec() is vectorization operator that stacks columns of a given matrix into a vector. vech() stacks columns of a given matrix from the principal diagonal downwards (including elements on the diagonal) into a vector. Bvec()
is a vectorization operator that stacks the columns of a given impact matrix Bm into a vector so that the elements that are constrained to zero by the argument B_constraints are excluded.
weight_function: What type of transition weights αm,t should be used?
"relative_dens":: c("alpham,t=\n", "fracalphamfm,dp(yt−1,...,yt−p+1)sumn=1Malphanfn,dp(yt−1,...,yt−p+1)"), where αm∈(0,1) are weight parameters that satisfy ∑m=1Mαm=1 and fm,dp(⋅) is the dp-dimensional stationary density of the mth regime corresponding to p
consecutive observations. Available for Gaussian conditional distribution only.
"logistic":: M=2, α1,t=1−α2,t, and α2,t=[1+exp{−γ(yit−j−c)}]−1, where yit−j is the lag j
observation of the $i$th variable, $c$ is a location parameter, and $\gamma > 0$ is a scale parameter.
"mlogit":: c("alpham,t=fracexplbracegammam′zt−1rbrace\n", "sumn=1Mexplbracegamman′zt−1rbrace"), where γm are coefficient vectors, γM=0, and zt−1(k×1) is the vector containing a constant and the (lagged) switching variables.
"exponential":: M=2, α1,t=1−α2,t, and α2,t=1−exp{−γ(yit−j−c)}, where yit−j is the lag j
observation of the $i$th variable, $c$ is a location parameter, and $\gamma > 0$ is a scale parameter.
"threshold":: αm,t=1 if rm−1<yit−j≤rm and 0 otherwise, where −∞≡r0<r1<⋯<rM−1<rM≡∞ are thresholds yit−j is the lag j
observation of the $i$th variable.
"exogenous":: Exogenous nonrandom transition weights, specify the weight series in weightfun_pars.
See the vignette for more details about the weight functions.
weightfun_pars: - If weight_function == "relative_dens":: Not used.
If weight_function %in% c("logistic", "exponential", "threshold"):: a numeric vector with the switching variable i∈{1,...,d} in the first and the lag j∈{1,...,p} in the second element.
If weight_function == "mlogit":: a list of two elements:
- **The first element `$vars`:**: a numeric vector containing the variables that should used as switching variables in the weight function in an increasing order, i.e., a vector with unique elements in $\lbrace 1,...,d \rbrace$.
- **The second element `$lags`:**: an integer in $\lbrace 1,...,p \rbrace$ specifying the number of lags to be used in the weight function.
If weight_function == "exogenous":: a size (nrow(data) - p x M) matrix containing the exogenous transition weights as [t, m] for time t and regime m. Each row needs to sum to one and only weakly positive values are allowed.
cond_dist: specifies the conditional distribution of the model as "Gaussian", "Student", "ind_Student", or "ind_skewed_t", where "ind_Student" the Student's t distribution with independent components, and "ind_skewed_t" is the skewed t distribution with independent components (see Hansen, 1994).
parametrization: "intercept" or "mean" determining whether the model is parametrized with intercept parameters ϕm,0 or regime means μm, m=1,...,M.
identification: is it reduced form model or an identified structural model; if the latter, how is it identified (see the vignette or the references for details)?
"reduced_form":: Reduced form model.
"recursive":: The usual lower-triangular recursive identification of the shocks via their impact responses.
"heteroskedasticity":: Identification by conditional heteroskedasticity, which imposes constant relative impact responses for each shock.
"non-Gaussianity":: Identification by non-Gaussianity; requires mutually independent non-Gaussian shocks, thus, currently available only with the conditional distribution "ind_Student".
AR_constraints: a size (Mpd2×q) constraint matrix C specifying linear constraints to the autoregressive parameters. The constraints are of the form (φ1,...,φM)=Cψ, where φm=(vec(Am,1),...,vec(Am,p))(pd2×1),m=1,...,M, contains the coefficient matrices and ψ(q×1) contains the related parameters. For example, to restrict the AR-parameters to be the identical across the regimes, set C=
[I:...:I]' (Mpd2×pd2) where I = diag(p*d^2).
mean_constraints: Restrict the mean parameters of some regimes to be identical? Provide a list of numeric vectors such that each numeric vector contains the regimes that should share the common mean parameters. For instance, if M=3, the argument list(1, 2:3) restricts the mean parameters of the second and third regime to be identical but the first regime has freely estimated (unconditional) mean. Ignore or set to NULL if mean parameters should not be restricted to be the same among any regimes. This constraint is available only for mean parametrized models; that is, when parametrization="mean".
weight_constraints: a list of two elements, R in the first element and r in the second element, specifying linear constraints on the transition weight parameters α. The constraints are of the form α=Rξ+r, where R is a known (a×l)
constraint matrix of full column rank (a is the dimension of α), r is a known (a×1) constant, and ξ is an unknown (l×1) parameter. Alternatively , set R=0 to constrain the weight parameters to the constant r (in this case, α is dropped from the constrained parameter vector).
B_constraints: a (d×d) matrix with its entries imposing constraints on the impact matrix Bt: NA indicating that the element is unconstrained, a positive value indicating strict positive sign constraint, a negative value indicating strict negative sign constraint, and zero indicating that the element is constrained to zero. Currently only available for models with identification="heteroskedasticity" or "non-Gaussianity" due to the (in)availability of appropriate parametrizations that allow such constraints to be imposed.
Returns
Returns a matrix with d rows and M columns - one column for each regime. The mth column contains the eigenvalues of the "Omega" error term covariance matrix of the mth regime.
References
Lütkepohl H. 2005. New Introduction to Multiple Time Series Analysis, Springer.