Evaluating the goodness of fit of stochastic mortality models

Kevin Dowd, Andrew J.G. Cairns, David Blake, Guy D. Coughlan, David Epstein and Marwa Khalaf-Allah

Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, 2010, vol. 47, issue 3, 255-265

Abstract: This study sets out a framework to evaluate the goodness of fit of stochastic mortality models and applies it to six different models estimated using English & Welsh male mortality data over ages 64-89 and years 1961-2007. The methodology exploits the structure of each model to obtain various residual series that are predicted to be iid standard normal under the null hypothesis of model adequacy. Goodness of fit can then be assessed using conventional tests of the predictions of iid standard normality. The models considered are: Lee and Carter's (1992) one-factor model, a version of Renshaw and Haberman's (2006) extension of the Lee-Carter model to allow for a cohort-effect, the age-period-cohort model, which is a simplified version of the Renshaw-Haberman model, the 2006 Cairns-Blake-Dowd two-factor model and two generalized versions of the latter that allow for a cohort-effect. For the data set considered, there are some notable differences amongst the different models, but none of the models performs well in all tests and no model clearly dominates the others.

Keywords: Goodness; of; fit; Mortality; models; Standard; normality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (43)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-6687(10)00075-2
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:insuma:v:47:y:2010:i:3:p:255-265

Access Statistics for this article

Insurance: Mathematics and Economics is currently edited by R. Kaas, Hansjoerg Albrecher, M. J. Goovaerts and E. S. W. Shiu

More articles in Insurance: Mathematics and Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().