IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/esr/wpaper/wp143.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Evaluating Methods for Short to Medium Term County Population Forecasting

Author

Listed:
  • Edgar Morgenroth

    (Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI))

Abstract

Public services provision and land use planning are crucially dependent on accurate population forecasts. Despite their importance, particularly for planning at the local level, population forecasts for Irish counties are not readily available. A number of different methods could be used to calculate such forecasts, but it is not clear which of these possible methods produces the most accurate forecasts. This paper assesses the data requirements and methodology involved in the implementation of the various techniques, and evaluates the forecasting performance of a number of different methods in terms of the forecast error associated with each method over the period 1991 to 1996. The results of this paper show that simple share extrapolation techniques perform well compared with the more elaborate cohort component model that is widely used for national projections.

Suggested Citation

  • Edgar Morgenroth, 2002. "Evaluating Methods for Short to Medium Term County Population Forecasting," Papers WP143, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
  • Handle: RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp143
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.esri.ie/pubs/WP143.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2002
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hughes, G., 1980. "Internal Migration Flows in Ireland and their Determinants," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number GRS98.
    2. Morgenroth, Edgar, 2005. "Analysis of the Economic Employment and Social Profile of the Greater Dublin Region," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number BMI161.
    3. John FitzGerald & Ide Kearney, 1999. "Migration and the Irish Labour Market," Papers WP113, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    4. Smith, Stanley K. & Sincich, Terry, 1992. "Evaluating the forecast accuracy and bias of alternative population projections for states," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 495-508, November.
    5. Joseph Gerard Hughes & Brendan M. Walsh, 1980. "Internal migration flows in Ireland and their determinants," Open Access publications 10197/1512, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    6. Barrett, Alan, 1999. "Irish Migration: Characteristics, Causes and Consequences," IZA Discussion Papers 97, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    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. Morgenroth, Edgar, 2014. "Modelling the Impact of Fundamentals on County Housing Markets in Ireland," MPRA Paper 57665, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Morgenroth, Edgar, 2008. "The Impact of Demographic Change on Demand for and Delivery of Health Services in Ireland 2006-2021: Report 2: Demographic Projections for the period until 2021," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number BKMNEXT166.
    3. Morgenroth, Edgar, 2018. "Prospects for Irish Regions and Counties: Scenarios and Implications," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS70.
    4. Stefan Rayer & Stanley Smith & Jeff Tayman, 2009. "Empirical Prediction Intervals for County Population Forecasts," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 28(6), pages 773-793, December.
    5. Morgenroth, Edgar, 2014. "Projected Population Change and Housing Demand: A County Level Analysis," Research Notes RN2014/2/3, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).

    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. Walsh, Brendan M., 2006. "Labour Market Adjustment in the Irish Regions: 1988-2005," Quarterly Economic Commentary: Special Articles, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), vol. 2006(3-Autumn), pages 80-99.
    2. Whelan, Christopher T. & Whelan, Brendan J., 1984. "Social Mobility in the Republic of Ireland: A Comparative Perspective," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number GRS116.
    3. Booth, Heather, 2006. "Demographic forecasting: 1980 to 2005 in review," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 547-581.
    4. Herman O. Stekler, 2008. "Evaluating Consensus Forecasts," Working Papers 2008-007, The George Washington University, Department of Economics, H. O. Stekler Research Program on Forecasting.
    5. Lozej, Matija & Rannenberg, Ansgar, 2017. "The macroeconomic effects of the regulatory LTV and LTI ratios in the Central Bank of Ireland's DSGE model," Economic Letters 04/EL/17, Central Bank of Ireland.
    6. Carter, Lawrence R., 1998. "Combining probabilistic and subjective assessments of error to provide realistic appraisals of demographic forecast uncertainty: Alho's approach," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 523-526, December.
    7. Lozej, Matija, 2019. "Economic migration and business cycles in a small open economy with matching frictions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 604-620.
    8. Alan Barrett & Irene Mosca, 2013. "The psychic costs of migration: evidence from Irish return migrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 483-506, April.
    9. Richard E Klosterman, 2012. "Simple and Complex Models," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 39(1), pages 1-6, February.
    10. Wickstrom, Jannie & Serup-Hansen, Niels & Kristiansen, Ivar Sonbo, 2002. "Future health care costs--do health care costs during the last year of life matter?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 161-172, November.
    11. Jeff Tayman & Stanley Smith & Jeffrey Lin, 2007. "Precision, bias, and uncertainty for state population forecasts: an exploratory analysis of time series models," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 26(3), pages 347-369, June.
    12. Liam Delaney & Alan Fernihough & James Smith, 2013. "Exporting Poor Health: The Irish in England," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(6), pages 2013-2035, December.
    13. Fullerton, Thomas Jr. & Laaksonen, Mika M. & West, Carol T., 2001. "Regional multi-family housing start forecast accuracy," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 171-180.
    14. Fertig, Michael & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2000. "Discretionary Measures of Active Labor Market Policy: The German Employment Promotion Reform in Perspective," IZA Discussion Papers 182, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. David A. Swanson, 2015. "On the Relationship among Values of the Same Summary Measure of Error when it is used across Multiple Characteristics at the Same Point in Time: An Examination of MALPE and MAPE," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 5, pages 1-14, August.
    16. Barrett, Alan & Mosca, Irene, 2012. "Social Isolation, Loneliness and Return Migration: Evidence from Older Irish Adults," IZA Discussion Papers 6331, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Ide Kearney, 1999. "A Note on Estimating Unemployment By Education," Papers WP103, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    18. Stefan Rayer & Stanley Smith, 2014. "Population Projections by Age for Florida and its Counties: Assessing Accuracy and the Impact of Adjustments," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(5), pages 747-770, October.
    19. Bonin, Holger & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2000. "The Post-Unification German Labor Market," IZA Discussion Papers 185, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Park, Jangho & Bayraksan, Güzin, 2023. "A multistage distributionally robust optimization approach to water allocation under climate uncertainty," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 306(2), pages 849-871.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:esr:wpaper:wp143. 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: Sarah Burns (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esriiie.html .

    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.