Projecting UK mortality by using Bayesian generalized additive models

Jason Hilton, Erengul Dodd, Jonathan J. Forster and Peter W. F. Smith

Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, 2019, vol. 68, issue 1, 29-49

Abstract: Forecasts of mortality provide vital information about future populations, with implications for pension and healthcare policy as well as for decisions made by private companies about life insurance and annuity pricing. The paper presents a Bayesian approach to the forecasting of mortality that jointly estimates a generalized additive model (GAM) for mortality for the majority of the age range and a parametric model for older ages where the data are sparser. The GAM allows smooth components to be estimated for age, cohort and age‐specific improvement rates, together with a non‐smoothed period effect. Forecasts for the UK are produced by using data from the human mortality database spanning the period 1961–2013. A metric that approximates predictive accuracy is used to estimate weights for the ‘stacking’ of forecasts from models with different points of transition between the GAM and parametric elements. Mortality for males and females is estimated separately at first, but a joint model allows the asymptotic limit of mortality at old ages to be shared between sexes and furthermore provides for forecasts accounting for correlations in period innovations.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/rssc.12299

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jorssc:v:68:y:2019:i:1:p:29-49

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://ordering.onli ... 1111/(ISSN)1467-9876

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C is currently edited by R. Chandler and P. W. F. Smith

More articles in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C from Royal Statistical Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().