We propose three new practical methods of smoothing mortality rates (the procedure known in demography as graduation) over two dimensions: age and time. The first method uses bivariate thin plate splines. The second uses a similar procedure but with lasso-type regularization. The third method...

We propose a new forecasting strategy, called rectify, that seeks to combine the best properties of both the recursive and direct forecasting strategies. The rationale behind the rectify strategy is to begin with biased recursive forecasts and adjust them so they are unbiased and have smaller...

This paper provides an information theoretic analysis of the signal-noise separation problem in Singular Spectrum Analysis. We present a signal-plus-noise model based on the Karhunen-Loève expansion and use this model to motivate the construction of a minimum description length criterion that...

The disparity in breast cancer mortality rates among white and black US women is widening with higher mortality rates among black women. We apply functional time series models on age-specific breast cancer mortality rates for each group of women, and forecast their mortality curves using...

A new automatic forecasting procedure is proposed based on a recent exponential smoothing framework which incorporates a Box-Cox transformation and ARMA residual corrections. The procedure is complete with well-defined methods for initialization, estimation, likelihood evaluation, and analytical...

Realized volatility of stock returns is often decomposed into two distinct components that are attributed to continuous price variation and jumps. This paper proposes a tobit multivariate factor model for the jumps coupled with a standard multivariate factor model for the continuous sample path...

This paper argues that VAR models with cointegration and common cycles can be usefully viewed as observable factor models. The factors are linear combinations of lagged levels and lagged differences, and as such, these observable factors have potential for forecasting. We illustrate this...

Using the age- and sex-specific data of 14 developed countries, we compare the short- to medium-term accuracy of ten principal component methods for forecasting mortality rates and life expectancy. These ten methods include the Lee-Carter method and many of its variants and extensions. For...

The recent debate on alcohol tax reform and recommendations from the Henry Tax Review in Australia have highlighted the need for quantifying externalities of excessive alcohol consumption by beverage types. This paper presents micro-level information from the Australian National Drug Strategy...

Short-term load forecasting is an essential instrument in power system planning, operation and control. Many operating decisions are based on load forecasts, such as dispatch scheduling of generating capacity, reliability analysis, and maintenance planning for the generators. Overestimation of...