DEPENDENCE STRUCTURE BETWEEN MONEY AND ECONOMIC ACTIVITY: A MARKOV-SWITCHING COPULA VEC APPROACH

Abstract

This paper examines correlation and dependence structures between money and the level of economic activity in the USA in the context of a Markov-switching copula vector error correction model. We use the error correction model to focus on the short-run dynamics between money and output while accounting for their long-run equilibrium relationship. We use the Markov regime-switching model to account for instabilities in the relationship between money and output, and also consider different copula models with different dependence structures to investigate (upper and lower) tail dependence.