The Department of Economics at the College of Administration and Economics, University of Mosul, witnessed on Tuesday, July 7, 2026 the discussion of the Doctoral dissertation entitled: “The Potential of Utilizing Artificial Intelligence Techniques to Determine the Factors Influencing Inflation and Forecasting It in Iraq,” submitted by the student Alaa Talib Al-Sayyid Wahb, in Discussion Hall No. (2).

​The study aimed to identify the economic, financial, monetary, and structural factors influencing inflation rates in Iraq by analyzing key variables, including: the exchange rate, money supply, public budget deficit or surplus, public debt, output gap, and trade openness. Additionally, it aimed to build a hybrid analytical and predictive framework that utilizes artificial intelligence techniques through Multilayer Perceptron Artificial Neural Networks (MLP-ANN), alongside the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, with the goal of enhancing the ability to interpret price dynamics and forecast their future paths with high accuracy.

​The study reached a number of important conclusions, most notable of which was that the public budget deficit and public debt represent the two most influential factors on inflation rates in Iraq, which confirms the fiscal nature of inflation in the Iraqi economy and its linkage to the oil-dependent rentier structure. Furthermore, the results proved the superiority of the Artificial Neural Network model over traditional econometric models in detecting non-linear inflationary spikes and providing early forecasts, thereby reinforcing the efficiency of integrating econometric methods with artificial intelligence techniques in analyzing and forecasting inflation.

​The discussion committee consisted of: Professor Dr. Bashar Ahmed Abdul-Razzaq – College of Administration and Economics / University of Mosul as a  Chairman,  ​Professor Dr. Khalil Ismail Aziz – College of Administration and Economics / University of Tikrit as a  Member, Assistant Professor Dr. Iman Mustafa Rashad – College of Administration and Economics / University of Mosul as a Member,  Assistant Professor Dr. Mohammed Jajan Younis – College of Computer Science and Mathematics / University of Mosul as a Member, ​Assistant Professor Dr. Omar Hisham Sabah – College of Administration and Economics / University of Mosul as a  Member, Assistant Professor Dr. Aws Fakhruddin Ayoub – College of Administration and Economics / University of Mosul as a Member and Supervisor and Assistant Professor Dr. Ramadan Mahmoud Rammo – College of Administration and Economics / University of Mosul as a Member and Supervisor.