Markov Regime-Switching Model for Financial Series

The Markov regime-switching model, introduced by James D. Hamilton in 1989, is a hidden-state time-series model in which financial series such as returns or volatility behave with different parameters across distinct economic regimes (bull/bear or high/low volatility). It is the financial application of Hamilton's MS-AR model, where an unobserved Markov state governs which parameter set is active at each point in time.