Bayesian Analysis of Multiplicative Seasonal Threshold Autoregressive Processes

Seasonal fluctuations are often found in many time series. In addition, non-linearity and the relationship with other time series are prominent behaviors of several, of such series. In this paper, we consider the modeling of multiplicative seasonal threshold autoregressive processes with exogenous input (TSARX), which explicitly and simultaneously incorporate multiplicative seasonality and threshold nonlinearity. Seasonality is modeled to be stochastic and regime dependent. The proposed model is a special case of a threshold autoregressive process with exogenous input (TARX). We develop a procedure based on Bayesian methods to identify the model, estimate parameters, validate the model and calculate forecasts. In the identification stage of the model, we present a statistical test of regime dependent multiplicative seasonality. The proposed methodology is illustrated with a simulated example and applied to economic empirical data.