Improving GARCH volatility forecasts with regime-switching GARCH

Abstract

Many researchers use GARCH models to generate volatility forecasts. Using data on three major U.S. dollar exchange rates we show that such forecasts are too high in volatile periods. We argue that this is due to the high persistence of shocks in GARCH forecasts. To obtain more flexibility regarding volatility persistence, this paper generalizes the GARCH model by distinguishing two regimes with different volatility levels; GARCH effects are allowed within each regime. The resulting Markov regime-switching GARCH model improves on existing variants, for instance by making multi-periodahead volatility forecasting a convenient recursive procedure. The empirical analysis demonstrates that the model resolves the problem with the high single-regime GARCH forecasts and that it yields significantly better outof-sample volatility forecasts.Key words: GARCH, Markov-switching, variance, forecasting, exchange rates. JEL classification: C52, C53, F31. * Department of Economics, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 11, 1018 WB Amsterdam, the Netherlands; tel: +31-20-5254191; fax: +31-20-5254254; E-mail: klaassen@fee.uva.nl. I thank Harry Huizinga, Frank de Jong, Michael McAleer, Bertrand Melenberg, Theo Nijman, Arthur van Soest, Kenneth West, the editors of this issue, James Hamilton and Baldev Raj, and two referees for very useful and constructive comments.

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