Abstract
The Lee-Carter (LC) method of mortality forecasting is well known and widely used. Two recent variants are the Lee-Miller (LM) variant and the Booth-Maindonald-Smith (BMS) variant. Both aim to improve the performance of the method. These two variants and the original Lee-Carter method are evaluated using data for twenty populations for 1900-2001, with the fitting period ending in 1985 and the forecast period beginning in 1986. Forecast errors are compared and decomposed, and uncertainty is examined. For these short-term forecasts, the two variants are generally more accurate than the LC method with narrower prediction intervals; and BMS marginally outperforms LM on these criteria overall. Further evaluation using different fitting periods is required.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 13-34 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | New Zealand population review |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 2005 |