A Markov Switching Regime Model of Malaysia Property Cycle

Problem statement: Non-linear models such as the Markov Switching regime (MS) method of modeling business cycles, in principle can be used to model property cycle. Approach: The MS model can distinguish property cycle in recession and expansion phases and is sufficiently flexible to allow different relationships to apply over these phases. The Malaysian property cycle was modeled using a MS model. Results: This technique could be used to simultaneously estimate the data generating process of real GDP growth and classify each observation into one of two regimes (i.e., low-growth and high-growth regimes). Conclusions: This finding has important policy implications, since the yield spread is used to generate the time-varying probabilities of the MS model as well as the recession probabilities of the logit model. A strong relationship exists between interest rates and the business cycle, where interest rates lead the business cycle.