10.4225/03/59374830eeb6e Booth, Heather Heather Booth Hyndman, Rob J. Rob J. Hyndman Tickle, Leonie Leonie Tickle de Jong, Piet Piet de Jong Lee-Carter mortality forecasting: a multi-country comparison of variants and extensions Monash University 2017 Functional data Nonparametric smoothing 1959.1/42199 State space Lee-Carter method Principal components 2006 Mortality forecasting monash:7418 2017-06-07 00:26:23 Journal contribution https://bridges.monash.edu/articles/journal_contribution/Lee-Carter_mortality_forecasting_a_multi-country_comparison_of_variants_and_extensions/5084623 We compare the short- to medium- term accuracy of five variants or extensions of the Lee-Carter method for mortality forecasting. These include the original Lee-Carter, the Lee-Miller and Booth-Maindonald-Smith variants, and the more flexible Hyndman-Ullah and De Jong-Tickle extensions. These methods are compared by applying them to sex-specific populations of 10 developed countries using data for 1986–2000 for evaluation. All variants and extensions are more accurate than the original Lee-Carter method for forecasting log death rates, by up to 61%. However, accuracy in log death rates does not necessarily translate into accuracy in life expectancy. There are no significant differences among the five methods in forecast accuracy for life expectancy.