Comparison of the forecast performances of linear time series and artificial neural network models within the context of Turkish inflation

Abstract

This thesis compares a variety of linear and nonlinear models to find the one with the best inflation forecast performance for the Turkish Economy. These comparisons are performed by considering the type of series whether or not stationary. Different combination techniques are applied to improve the forecasts. It is observed that the combination forecasts based on nonstationary vector autoregressive (VAR) and artificial neural network (ANN) models are better than the ones generated by other models. Furthermore, the forecast values combined with ANN technique produce lower root mean square errors (RMSE) than the other combination techniques.