One crucial task of actuaries is to structure data so that observed events are explained by their inherent risk factors. They are proficient at generalizing important elements to obtain useful forecasts. Although this expertise is beneficial when paired with conventional statistical models, it...

We nowcast world trade using machine learning, distinguishing between tree-based methods (random forest, gradient boosting) and their regression-based counterparts (macroeconomic random forest, linear gradient boosting). While much less used in the literature, the latter are found to outperform...