Roberto Patuelli () (Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Aura Reggiani () (Department of Economics, University of Bologna, Italy) Peter Nijkamp () (Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Uwe Blien () (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nuremberg)
Additional information is available for the following
registered author(s):
In this paper, a set of neural network (NN) models is developed to compute short-term forecasts of regional employment patterns in Germany. NNs are modern statistical tools based on learning algorithms that are able to process large amounts of data. NNs are enjoying increasing interest in several fields, because of their effectiveness in handling complex data sets when the functional relationship between dependent and independent variables is not explicitly specified. The present paper compares two NN methodologies. First, it uses NNs to forecast regional employment in both the former West and East Germany. Each model implemented computes single estimates of employment growth rates for each German district, with a 2-year forecasting range. Next, additional forecasts are computed, by combining the NN methodology with Shift-Share Analysis (SSA). Since SSA aims to identify variations observed among the labour districts, its results are used as further explanatory variables in the NN models. The data set used in our experiments consists of a panel of 439 German districts. Because of differences in the size and time horizons of the data, the forecasts for West and East Germany are computed separately. The out-of-sample forecasting ability of the models is evaluated by means of several appropriate statistical indicators.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)