Nguyen Duc Trung – författare

This book presents recent research on probabilistic methods in economics, from machine learning to statistical analysis. Economics is a very important – and at the same a very difficult discipline. It is not easy to predict how an economy will evolve or to identify the measures needed to make an economy prosper. One of the main reasons for this is the high level of uncertainty: different difficult-to-predict events can influence the future economic behavior. To make good predictions and reasonable recommendations, this uncertainty has to be taken into account.

In the past, most related research results were based on using traditional techniques from probability and statistics, such as p-value-based hypothesis testing. These techniques led to numerous successful applications, but in the last decades, several examples have emerged showing that these techniques often lead to unreliable and inaccurate predictions. It is therefore necessary to come up with new techniques for processing the corresponding uncertainty that go beyond the traditional probabilistic techniques.

This book offers an overview of state-of-the-art econometric techniques, with a special emphasis on financial econometrics. There is a major need for such techniques, since the traditional way of designing mathematical models – based on researchers’ insights – can no longer keep pace with the ever-increasing data flow. To catch up, many application areas have begun relying on data science, i.e., on techniques for extracting models from data, such as data mining, machine learning, and innovative statistics. In terms of capitalizing on data science, many application areas are way ahead of economics. To close this gap, the book provides examples of how data science techniques can be used in economics. Corresponding techniques range from almost traditional statistics to promising novel ideas such as quantum econometrics. Given its scope, the book will appeal to students and researchers interested in state-of-the-art developments, and to practitioners interested in using data science techniques.  

This volume emphasizes techniques of optimal transport statistics, but it also describes and uses other econometric techniques, ranging from more traditional statistical techniques to more innovative ones such as quantiles (in particular, multidimensional quantiles), maximum entropy approach, and machine learning. Applications range from general analysis of GDP growth, stock market, and consumer prices to analysis of specific sectors of economics (construction, credit and banking, energy, health, labor, textile, tourism, international trade) to specific issues affecting economy such as bankruptcy, effect of Covid-19 pandemic, effect of pollution, effect of gender, cryptocurrencies, and the existence of shadow economy. Papers presented in this volume also cover data processing techniques, with economic and financial application being the unifying theme. This volume shows what has been achieved, but even more important are remaining open problems. We hope that this volume will: ˆ inspire practitioners to learn how to apply state-of-the-art techniques, especially techniques of optimal transport statistics, to economic and financial problems, and ˆ inspire researchers to further improve the existing techniques and to come up with new techniques for studying economic and financial phenomena.

This book covers data processing techniques, with economic and financial application being the unifying theme. To make proper investments in economy, the authors need to have a good understanding of the future trends: how will demand change, how will prices change, etc. In general, in science, the usual way to make predictions is:

In many practical situations—especially in economics—our past experiences are limited. As a result, the authors can only achieve a partial identification. It is therefore important to be able to make predictions based on such partially identified models—which is the main focus of this book. This book emphasizes partial identification techniques, but it also describes and uses other econometric techniques, ranging from more traditional statistical techniques to more innovative ones such as game-theoretic approach, interval techniques, and machine learning. Applications range from general analysis of GDP growth, stock market, and consumer prices to analysis of specific sectors of economics (credit and banking, energy, health, labor, tourism, international trade) to specific issues affecting economy such as ecology, national culture, government regulations, and the existence of shadow economy. This book shows what has been achieved, but even more important are remaining open problems. The authors hope that this book will:

The publication of this book—and organization of the conference at which these papers were presented—was supported:

The authors thank the leadership and staff of HUB and VINIF for providing crucial support.