IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/insuma/v83y2018icp206-221.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bayesian mortality forecasting with overdispersion

Author

Listed:
  • Wong, Jackie S.T.
  • Forster, Jonathan J.
  • Smith, Peter W.F.

Abstract

The ability to produce accurate mortality forecasts, accompanied by a set of representative uncertainty bands, is crucial in the planning of public retirement funds and various life-related businesses. In this paper, we focus on one of the drawbacks of the Poisson Lee–Carter model (Brouhns et al., 2002) that imposes mean–variance equality, restricting mortality variations across individuals. Specifically, we present two models to potentially account for overdispersion. We propose to fit these models within the Bayesian framework for various advantages, but primarily for coherency. Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are implemented to carry out parameter estimation. Several comparisons are made with the Bayesian Poisson Lee–Carter model (Czado et al., 2005) to highlight the importance of accounting for overdispersion. We demonstrate that the methodology we developed prevents over-fitting and yields better calibrated prediction intervals for the purpose of mortality projections. Bridge sampling is used to approximate the marginal likelihood of each candidate model to compare the models quantitatively.

Suggested Citation

  • Wong, Jackie S.T. & Forster, Jonathan J. & Smith, Peter W.F., 2018. "Bayesian mortality forecasting with overdispersion," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 206-221.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:insuma:v:83:y:2018:i:c:p:206-221
    DOI: 10.1016/j.insmatheco.2017.09.023
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167668717302433
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.insmatheco.2017.09.023?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ronald Lee & Timothy Miller, 2001. "Evaluating the performance of the lee-carter method for forecasting mortality," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(4), pages 537-549, November.
    2. Jeffrey R. Brown, 2003. "Redistribution and Insurance: Mandatory Annuitization With Mortality Heterogeneity," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 70(1), pages 17-41, March.
    3. Arkadiusz Wiśniowski & Peter Smith & Jakub Bijak & James Raymer & Jonathan Forster, 2015. "Bayesian Population Forecasting: Extending the Lee-Carter Method," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(3), pages 1035-1059, June.
    4. Katrien Antonio & Anastasios Bardoutsos & Wilbert Ouburg, 2015. "Bayesian Poisson log-bilinear models for mortality projections with multiple populations," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1505, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    5. Andrew J. G. Cairns & David Blake & Kevin Dowd, 2006. "A Two‐Factor Model for Stochastic Mortality with Parameter Uncertainty: Theory and Calibration," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 73(4), pages 687-718, December.
    6. Czado, Claudia & Delwarde, Antoine & Denuit, Michel, 2005. "Bayesian Poisson log-bilinear mortality projections," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 260-284, June.
    7. Adrian Raftery & Jennifer Chunn & Patrick Gerland & Hana Ševčíková, 2013. "Bayesian Probabilistic Projections of Life Expectancy for All Countries," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(3), pages 777-801, June.
    8. Booth, H. & Tickle, L., 2008. "Mortality Modelling and Forecasting: a Review of Methods," Annals of Actuarial Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(1-2), pages 3-43, September.
    9. Shripad Tuljapurkar & Nan Li & Carl Boe, 2000. "A universal pattern of mortality decline in the G7 countries," Nature, Nature, vol. 405(6788), pages 789-792, June.
    10. Li, Johnny Siu-Hang & Hardy, Mary R. & Tan, Ken Seng, 2009. "Uncertainty in Mortality Forecasting: An Extension to the Classical Lee-Carter Approach," ASTIN Bulletin, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 137-164, May.
    11. G. O. Roberts & S. K. Sahu, 1997. "Updating Schemes, Correlation Structure, Blocking and Parameterization for the Gibbs Sampler," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 59(2), pages 291-317.
    12. Jackie Li, 2014. "An application of MCMC simulation in mortality projection for populations with limited data," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 30(1), pages 1-48.
    13. Brouhns, Natacha & Denuit, Michel & Vermunt, Jeroen K., 2002. "A Poisson log-bilinear regression approach to the construction of projected lifetables," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 373-393, December.
    14. Antoine Delwarde & Michel Denuit & Christian Partrat, 2007. "Negative binomial version of the Lee–Carter model for mortality forecasting," Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(5), pages 385-401, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Blake, David & Cairns, Andrew J.G., 2021. "Longevity risk and capital markets: The 2019-20 update," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 395-439.
    2. Sixian Tang & Jackie Li & Leonie Tickle, 2022. "A New Fourier Approach under the Lee-Carter Model for Incorporating Time-Varying Age Patterns of Structural Changes," Risks, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-24, July.
    3. Barigou, Karim & Goffard, Pierre-Olivier & Loisel, Stéphane & Salhi, Yahia, 2023. "Bayesian model averaging for mortality forecasting using leave-future-out validation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 674-690.
    4. Yaser Awad & Shaul K. Bar-Lev & Udi Makov, 2022. "A New Class of Counting Distributions Embedded in the Lee–Carter Model for Mortality Projections: A Bayesian Approach," Risks, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-17, May.
    5. Wang, Pengjie & Pantelous, Athanasios A. & Vahid, Farshid, 2023. "Multi-population mortality projection: The augmented common factor model with structural breaks," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 450-469.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Basellini, Ugofilippo & Camarda, Carlo Giovanni & Booth, Heather, 2023. "Thirty years on: A review of the Lee–Carter method for forecasting mortality," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1033-1049.
    2. Basellini, Ugofilippo & Camarda, Carlo Giovanni & Booth, Heather, 2022. "Thirty years on: A review of the Lee-Carter method for forecasting mortality," SocArXiv 8u34d, Center for Open Science.
    3. Li, Johnny Siu-Hang, 2010. "Pricing longevity risk with the parametric bootstrap: A maximum entropy approach," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 176-186, October.
    4. Ahbab Mohammad Fazle Rabbi & Stefano Mazzuco, 2021. "Mortality Forecasting with the Lee–Carter Method: Adjusting for Smoothing and Lifespan Disparity," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(1), pages 97-120, March.
    5. Hong Li & Yang Lu, 2018. "A Bayesian non-parametric model for small population mortality," Post-Print hal-02419000, HAL.
    6. Jackie Li & Leonie Tickle & Nick Parr, 2016. "A multi-population evaluation of the Poisson common factor model for projecting mortality jointly for both sexes," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 333-360, December.
    7. Wang, Pengjie & Pantelous, Athanasios A. & Vahid, Farshid, 2023. "Multi-population mortality projection: The augmented common factor model with structural breaks," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 450-469.
    8. Li, Han & O’Hare, Colin, 2017. "Semi-parametric extensions of the Cairns–Blake–Dowd model: A one-dimensional kernel smoothing approach," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 166-176.
    9. de Jong, Piet & Tickle, Leonie & Xu, Jianhui, 2020. "A more meaningful parameterization of the Lee–Carter model," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 1-8.
    10. Geng Niu & Bertrand Melenberg, 2014. "Trends in Mortality Decrease and Economic Growth," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(5), pages 1755-1773, October.
    11. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2009-015 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Katrien Antonio & Anastasios Bardoutsos & Wilbert Ouburg, 2015. "Bayesian Poisson log-bilinear models for mortality projections with multiple populations," Working Papers Department of Accountancy, Finance and Insurance (AFI), Leuven 485564, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Accountancy, Finance and Insurance (AFI), Leuven.
    13. Hong Li & Johnny Siu-Hang Li, 2017. "Optimizing the Lee-Carter Approach in the Presence of Structural Changes in Time and Age Patterns of Mortality Improvements," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(3), pages 1073-1095, June.
    14. Blake, David & Cairns, Andrew J.G., 2021. "Longevity risk and capital markets: The 2019-20 update," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 395-439.
    15. Man Chung Fung & Gareth W. Peters & Pavel V. Shevchenko, 2016. "A unified approach to mortality modelling using state-space framework: characterisation, identification, estimation and forecasting," Papers 1605.09484, arXiv.org.
    16. Jackie Li, 2014. "An application of MCMC simulation in mortality projection for populations with limited data," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 30(1), pages 1-48.
    17. Ka Kin Lam & Bo Wang, 2021. "Robust Non-Parametric Mortality and Fertility Modelling and Forecasting: Gaussian Process Regression Approaches," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-21, March.
    18. Patrizio Vanella & Ugofilippo Basellini & Berit Lange, 2020. "Assessing Excess Mortality in Times of Pandemics Based on Principal Component Analysis of Weekly Mortality Data -- The Case of COVID-19," Working Papers axbhmxrs-o0viyh9z07m, French Institute for Demographic Studies.
    19. Ayuso, Mercedes & Bravo, Jorge M. & Holzmann, Robert, 2021. "Getting life expectancy estimates right for pension policy: period versus cohort approach," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 212-231, April.
    20. Katja Hanewald & Thomas Post & Helmut Gründl, 2011. "Stochastic Mortality, Macroeconomic Risks and Life Insurer Solvency," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 36(3), pages 458-475, July.
    21. Adrian Raftery & Jennifer Chunn & Patrick Gerland & Hana Ševčíková, 2013. "Bayesian Probabilistic Projections of Life Expectancy for All Countries," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(3), pages 777-801, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:insuma:v:83:y:2018:i:c:p:206-221. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505554 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.