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How Accurate are the U.S. Bureau of the Census Projections of Total Live Births?
Author(s) -
Ahlburg Dennis A.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
journal of forecasting
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.543
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1099-131X
pISSN - 0277-6693
DOI - 10.1002/for.3980010404
Subject(s) - census , geography , statistics , econometrics , demography , economics , population , mathematics , sociology
The accuracy of total live birth forecasts issued by the U.S. Bureau of the Census was analysed. Forecast accuracy has not improved significantly since 1950. Further, the forecasts are not more accurate than several naive alternatives. Moving from a period methodology to a cohort methodology improved forecast accuracy for certain forecasts. The Bureau of the Census systematically underestimated total births in the upswing and overestimated in the downswing.