Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been the catalyst to numerous advances in a variety of fields and disciplines in recent years. Their impact on economics, however, has been comparatively muted.One type of ANN, the long short-term memory network (LSTM), is particularly well-suited to deal...

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the increasing need of policymakers for timely estimates of macroeconomic variables. A prior UNCTAD research paper examined the suitability of long short-term memory artificial neural networks (LSTM) for performing economic nowcasting of this nature. Here,...