In the last decades, machine learning techniques – especially techniques of deep learning – led to numerous successes in many application areas, including economics. The use of machine learning in economics is the main focus of this book; however, the book also describes the use of more traditional econometric techniques. Applications include practically all major sectors of economics: agriculture, health (including the impact of Covid-19), manufacturing, trade, transportation, etc. Several papers analyze the effect of age, education, and gender on economy – and, more generally, issues of fairness and discrimination. We hope that this volume will: help practitioners to become better knowledgeable of the state-of-the-art econometric techniques, especially techniques of machine learning, and help researchers to further develop these important research directions. We want to thank all the authors for their contributions and all anonymous referees for their thorough analysis and helpful comments.

This book helps and promotes the use of machine learning tools and techniques in econometrics and explains how machine learning can enhance and expand the econometrics toolbox in theory and in practice. Throughout the volume, the authors raise and answer six questions: 1) What are the similarities between existing econometric and machine learning techniques? 2) To what extent can machine learning techniques assist econometric investigation? Specifically, how robust or stable is the prediction from machine learning algorithms given the ever-changing nature of human behavior? 3) Can machine learning techniques assist in testing statistical hypotheses and identifying causal relationships in ‘big data? 4) How can existing econometric techniques be extended by incorporating machine learning concepts? 5) How can new econometric tools and approaches be elaborated on based on machine learning techniques? 6) Is it possible to develop machine learning techniques further and make them even more readily applicable in econometrics? As the data structures in economic and financial data become more complex and models become more sophisticated, the book takes a multidisciplinary approach in developing both disciplines of machine learning and econometrics in conjunction, rather than in isolation. This volume is a must-read for scholars, researchers, students, policy-makers, and practitioners, who are using econometrics in theory or in practice.

Get up to speed on the application of machine learning approaches in macroeconomic research. This book brings together economics and data science. Author Tshepo Chris Nokeri begins by introducing you to covariance analysis, correlation analysis, cross-validation, hyperparameter optimization, regression analysis, and residual analysis. In addition, he presents an approach to contend with multi-collinearity. He then debunks a time series model recognized as the additive model. He reveals a technique for binarizing an economic feature to perform classification analysis using logistic regression. He brings in the Hidden Markov Model, used to discover hidden patterns and growth in the world economy. The author demonstrates unsupervised machine learning techniques such as principal component analysis and cluster analysis. Key deep learning concepts and ways of structuring artificial neural networks are explored along with training them and assessing their performance. The Monte Carlo simulation technique is applied to stimulate the purchasing power of money in an economy. Lastly, the Structural Equation Model (SEM) is considered to integrate correlation analysis, factor analysis, multivariate analysis, causal analysis, and path analysis. After reading this book, you should be able to recognize the connection between econometrics and data science. You will know how to apply a machine learning approach to modeling complex economic problems and others beyond this book. You will know how to circumvent and enhance model performance, together with the practical implications of a machine learning approach in econometrics, and you will be able to deal with pressing economic problems. What You Will Learn Examine complex, multivariate, linear-causal structures through the path and structural analysis technique, including non-linearity and hidden states Be familiar with practical applications of machine learning and deep learning in econometrics Understand theoretical framework and hypothesis development, and techniques for selecting appropriate models Develop, test, validate, and improve key supervised (i.e., regression and classification) and unsupervised (i.e., dimension reduction and cluster analysis) machine learning models, alongside neural networks, Markov, and SEM models Represent and interpret data and models Who This Book Is For Beginning and intermediate data scientists, economists, machine learning engineers, statisticians, and business executives

This book provides the ultimate goal of economic studies to predict how the economy develops—and what will happen if we implement different policies. To be able to do that, we need to have a good understanding of what causes what in economics. Prediction and causality in economics are the main topics of this book's chapters; they use both more traditional and more innovative techniques—including quantum ideas -- to make predictions about the world economy (international trade, exchange rates), about a country's economy (gross domestic product, stock index, inflation rate), and about individual enterprises, banks, and micro-finance institutions: their future performance (including the risk of bankruptcy), their stock prices, and their liquidity. Several papers study how COVID-19 has influenced the world economy. This book helps practitioners and researchers to learn more about prediction and causality in economics -- and to further develop this important research direction.

The book aims to bring together studies using different data types (panel data, cross-sectional data and time series data) and different methods (e.g., panel regression, nonlinear time series, chaos approach, among others) and to create a source for those interested in these topics and methods by addressing some selected applied econometrics topics.

This book overviews latest ideas and developments in financial econometrics, with an emphasis on how to best use prior knowledge (e.g., Bayesian way) and how to best use successful data processing techniques from other application areas (e.g., from quantum physics). The book also covers applications to economy-related phenomena ranging from traditionally analyzed phenomena such as manufacturing, food industry, and taxes, to newer-to-analyze phenomena such as cryptocurrencies, influencer marketing, COVID-19 pandemic, financial fraud detection, corruption, and shadow economy. This book will inspire practitioners to learn how to apply state-of-the-art Bayesian, quantum, and related techniques to economic and financial problems and inspire researchers to further improve the existing techniques and come up with new techniques for studying economic and financial phenomena. The book will also be of interest to students interested in latest ideas and results.