A comparison of VAR and neural networks with genetic algorithm in forecasting price of oil

This study applies VAR and ANN techniques to make ex-post forecast of U.S. oil price movements. The VAR-based forecast uses three endogenous variables: lagged oil price, lagged oil supply and lagged energy consumption. However the VAR model suggests that the impacts of oil supply and energy consumption has limited impacts on oil price movement. The forecast of the genetic algorithm-based ANN model is made by using oil supply, energy consumption, and money supply (M1). Root mean squared error and mean absolute error have been used as the evaluation criteria. Our analysis suggests that the BPN-GA model noticeably outperforms the VAR model.