An artificial intelligence approach to the role of exports in the economic development of Malaysia

Abstract

Over the past three decades, Malaysia has shown impressive economic growth, placing this country in a group of fast-growing Southeast Asian economies and among the top performing economies in the world. This achievement has been consciously undertaken through export expansion strategies and by attracting foreign investments. Using an artificial intelligence approach and data from 1966 to 1994, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of exports in the economic growth and development of Malaysia. The results of this new methodology confirm the earlier findings that exports strongly contributed to the economic growth and development of Malaysia. The results of the model simulation for the in-sample and out-of-sample data show that the model's forecast is better than of the regression approach.