Machine Learning for Economic Forecasting: An Application to China's GDP Growth

This paper aims to explore the application of machine learning in forecasting Chinese macroeconomic variables. Specifically, it employs various machine learning models to predict the quarterly real GDP growth of China, and analyzes the factors contributing to the performance differences among these models. Our findings indicate that the average forecast errors of machine learning models are generally lower than those of traditional econometric models or expert forecasts, particularly in periods ...