Regime switches between dividend and bond yields

Abstract

The relation between bond and equity returns serves as a proxy for estimating the premia investors' demand on their equity portfolio holdings and assessing the substitution effects between the two markets. With this in mind, we examine empirically the co-movements and the underlying information between equities and bonds. Our approach relies on the comparison between bond and dividend yields — a relation better known as the gilt-equity yield ratio–GEYR — by examining the characteristics of the cointegration relation between the bond and equity yields. In this context, this paper's contribution is that it lifts the restrictions of linearity both in the long-run cointegration relations and in the underlying short-run relations presented in the VECM. Specifically, we apply the regime-switching framework of Gregory and Hansen (Gregory, A. W. & Hansen, B. E. (1996). Residual-based tests for cointegration in models with regime shifts. Journal of Econometrics 70, 99–126) for the long-run equilibriums and the Markov Switching VECM, established by Krolzig (Krolzig, H.M., 1997. Markov switching vector autoregressions. Modelling statistical inference and application to business cycle analysis. Springer, Verlag) for the short run ones. Our aim is to examine the allocation of capital among the UK bond (or else, gilt) and stock markets for the period of 01-1987 to 01-2007, in a fashion that better reflects the structural breaks and regime shifts of the underlying market conditions. Our findings confirm the substitution effects among stocks and bonds in the long run and highlight the importance of market conditions for the allocation of capital among stocks and bonds.