An Analytical Study On Forecasting Exchange Rate In The Philippines Using Multi-Layer Feed Forward Neural Network

Abstract

Exchange Rate is one of the economic indicators in the Philippines. It is the value of the nation’s currency versus the  currency of another country or economic zone. This study aims to forecast the monthly Exchange Rate (y) of the Philippines from November 2018 to December 2023 using Multiple Linear Regression and Multi-Layer Feed Forward Neural Network. The researchers investigate the behaviour of each independent variables – Inflation Rate (x1), Balance of Payments (x2), Interest Rate (x3), Producer’s Price Index (x4), Export (x5), Import (x6), Money Supply (x7), and Consumer’s Price Index (x8) from Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) starts from January 2007 up to October 2018. Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) was used to identify significant predictors among these independent variables. The Exchange Rate (y) had undergone first difference transformation. Upon running the regression analysis, it has concluded that only two independent variables are significant predictors, namely: Balance of Payments (x2) and Import (x6). Through these significant predictors, the MLR model was formulated. On the other hand, Multi-Layer Feed forward Neural Network (MFFNN) was also used to determine the forecasted values of Exchange Rate (y) for the next five years (2018-2023) given the said independent variables and obtained a model. The researchers compared the model of Multiple Linear Regression and Multi-Layer Feed Forward Neural Network by evaluating the forecasting accuracy of each method.It was concluded that Multi-Layer Feed forward Neural Network is the best fitting model for forecasting the

Exchange rate (y) in the Philippines. This paper will serve as a tool of awareness for the government to forsee the trend of Exchange Rate in the Philippines on the next five years  (2018-2023) for Monetary Policy making and to prevent the possible depreciation of peso vs. dollar.