“…Many researchers consider this assumption incorrect and have provided evidence of asymmetric relationships among major macroeconomic variables (Park and Phillips, 2001;Schorderet, 2001;Saikkonen and Choi, 2004;Escribano et al, 2006;Bae and De Jong, 2007;Shin et al, 2013). Granger 12 This method has been cited in some of the recent studies such as Greenwood-Nimmo and Shin (2011), Karantininis, Katrakylidis andPersson (2011), Cho, Kim andShin (2012), Garz (2012), Katrakilidis, Lake and Trachanas (2012) and . Regime-switching models, on the other hand, are based on the view that linear models are inadequate to provide a strong inference, or to yield consistent and reliable forecasts, because the linearity assumption may be restrictive in most of the macroeconomic scenarios, hence leading to incorrect forecasts and inferences (Shin et al, 2013).…”