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Can Taylor’s law of fluctuation scaling and its relatives help demographers select more plausible multi-regional population forecasts?

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  • Joel E. Cohen
  • Helge Brunborg
  • Meng Xu

Abstract

Which of several alternative population forecasts is the “best” or the most plausible? In published work summarized here, we use Taylor’s law (TL) and its quadratic generalization to select the best among six alternative projections (by Statistics Norway) of Norwegian county population density. We consider two time scales: long term (1978–2010 as the historical basis for projections of 2011–2040) and short term (2006–2010 as the historical basis for projections of 2011–2015). We find that the short-term projections selected as “best” by TL are more closely aligned than the four other projections with the recent county density data, and reflect the current high rate of international net immigration to Norway. Our approach needs to be further tested using other data and demographic forecasts.

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  • Joel E. Cohen & Helge Brunborg & Meng Xu, 2018. "Can Taylor’s law of fluctuation scaling and its relatives help demographers select more plausible multi-regional population forecasts?," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 16(1), pages 015-023.
    • Handle: RePEc:vid:yearbk:v:16:y:2018:i:1:p:015-023
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    1. Meng Xu & Helge Brunborg & Joel E. Cohen, 2017. "Evaluating multi-regional population projections with Taylor’s law of mean–variance scaling and its generalisation," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 79-99, March.
    2. Wolfgang Lutz & Warren Sanderson & Sergei Scherbov, 1997. "Doubling of world population unlikely," Nature, Nature, vol. 387(6635), pages 803-805, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Yang Yang & Han Lin Shang & Joel E. Cohen, 2022. "Temporal and spatial Taylor's law: Application to Japanese subnational mortality rates," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 185(4), pages 1979-2006, October.

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