Proceedings of the 2007 Summer Computer Simulation Conference

Nasr, George E.; Dibeh, Ghassan; Achkar, Antoine

Proceedings of the 2007 Summer Computer Simulation Conference

Title: Proceedings of the 2007 Summer Computer Simulation Conference;
Predicting business cycle turning points with neural networks in an information-poor economy

Nasr, George E.; Dibeh, Ghassan; Achkar, Antoine; SOB; SOE; 199390170; 199490150; Department of Economics (ECON); genasr@lau.edu.lb; gdibeh@lau.edu.lb; Lebanese American University

URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10725/6084

URL: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1358008

Abstract:

A feedforward neural network model is used to forecast turning points in the business cycle of postwar Lebanon. The NN has as inputs seven indicators of economic activity and as output the probability of a recession. The three-layered network is estimated using the back propagation algorithm. The NN is then used to forecast recursively a half-year ahead the probability of a recession in that period. The NN shows that two of the economic indicators can be used to construct a composite index of leading indicators that can be used to predict business cycles in the future.

Citation:

Nasr, G. E., Dibeh, G., & Achkar, A. (2007, July). Predicting business cycle turning points with neural networks in an information-poor economy. In Proceedings of the 2007 Summer Computer Simulation Conference (pp. 627-631). San diego, CA.: Society for Computer Simulation International.