A Bayesian nonlinearity test for threshold moving average models

We propose a Bayesian test for nonlinearity of threshold moving average (TMA) models. First, we obtain the marginal posterior densities of all parameters, including the threshold and delay, of the TMA model using Gibbs sampler with the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. And then, we adopt reversible-jump Markov chain Monte Carlo methods to calculate the posterior probabilities for MA and TMA models. Posterior evidence in favour of the TMA model indicates threshold nonlinearity. Simulation experiments and a real example show that our method works very well in distinguishing MA and TMA models. Copyright Copyright 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd