Maximum likelihood estimation for quantile autoregression models with Markovian switching

Abstract

By establishing a connection between a quantile regression and an asymmetric Laplace distribution (ALD), this paper considers the maximum likelihood estimation of parameters of a quantile autoregression model with Markovian switching (MSQAR), where the error terms obey ALD whose scale parameter depends on regime shifts. By utilizing the mixture representation of ALD, we develop an effective ML approach for estimating parameters of MSQAR models, and obtain closed-form estimators of unknown parameters via the EM algorithm. Consistency and asymptotic normality of estimators are shown by extending some techniques adopted in Douc, Moulines, and Rydén (2004). Also, we extend some asymptotic results of estimators to the case where the conditional quantile regression model is misspecified. Furthermore, the proposed approach is illustrated by simulations and empirical data. Simulation results show that the procedure performs well in finite samples, and the empirical analysis not only supports the existence of regime-switching in the quantile autoregression model, but also has a good performance on data fitting.