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Journal of Population Sciences

Table 10 Mean absolute forecast error (MAFE) of remaining life expectancy at birth for the first and fifth year in the forecasting period, and standard deviation (SD) of the increase/decrease of the life expectancy at birth in 2020 between ten successive forecasts, for six different choices of the jump-off rates applied to a Lee-Carter model, for eight countries, men and women combined, fitting periods 1960–2005, 1960–2006, …, 1960–2014

From: Comparing strategies for matching mortality forecasts to the most recently observed data: exploring the trade-off between accuracy and robustness

Jump-off rates FRA ESP SWE BEL UK NOR FIN NLD Av1
Standard deviation in 2020
 Model values 0.16 0.15 0.36 0.25 0.22 0.37 0.71 0.25 0.31
 Last observed values 0.20 0.25 0.09 0.22 0.18 0.11 0.25 0.16 0.18
 Average 2 years observed 0.12 0.11 0.08 0.11 0.12 0.10 0.19 0.11 0.12
 Average 3 years observed 0.11 0.10 0.07 0.10 0.10 0.11 0.20 0.11 0.11
 Average 4 years observed 0.10 0.05 0.07 0.07 0.08 0.13 0.20 0.11 0.10
 Average 5 years observed 0.08 0.07 0.09 0.07 0.06 0.12 0.19 0.10 0.10
Mean absolute forecast error in the first year of the forecasting period
 Model values 0.21 0.17 0.38 0.08 0.46 0.38 0.42 0.47 0.32
 Last observed values 0.15 0.19 0.08 0.15 0.13 0.11 0.13 0.16 0.14
 Average 2 years observed 0.14 0.19 0.08 0.15 0.15 0.12 0.09 0.20 0.14
 Average 3 years observed 0.14 0.21 0.10 0.15 0.19 0.16 0.10 0.26 0.16
 Average 4 years observed 0.15 0.24 0.11 0.16 0.24 0.22 0.12 0.33 0.20
 Average 5 years observed 0.19 0.27 0.13 0.17 0.29 0.27 0.13 0.42 0.23
Mean absolute forecast error in the fifth year of the forecasting period
 Model values 0.24 0.37 0.49 0.18 0.78 0.74 0.62 0.70 0.51
 Last observed values 0.17 0.48 0.16 0.16 0.50 0.38 0.25 0.39 0.31
 Average 2 years observed 0.16 0.52 0.16 0.17 0.51 0.40 0.25 0.44 0.33
 Average 3 years observed 0.18 0.58 0.19 0.19 0.52 0.45 0.26 0.52 0.36
 Average 4 years observed 0.22 0.61 0.22 0.21 0.54 0.52 0.28 0.62 0.40
 Average 5 years observed 0.25 0.65 0.25 0.24 0.57 0.60 0.31 0.71 0.45
  1. The lowest SD/MAFE is marked in bold, the highest SD/MAFE in italics
  2. 1Unweighted average of all countries
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