In recent years, neural networks have received an increasing amount of attention among macroeconomic forecasters because of their potential to detect and reproduce linear and nonlinear relationships among a set of variables. This paper provides a highly accessible introduction to neural networks...

It is well known that total government spending relative to GDP is higher in Canada than in the United States, but it is less clear where exactly Canadian governments spend more (or less) than their American counterparts. The reason for the confusion is that there are no readily available,...