title: How accurate are the U.S. Bureau of the Census projections of total live births.
abstract: "The accuracy of total live birth forecasts issued by the U.S. Bureau of the Census was analysed.  Forecast accuracy has not improved significantly since 1950.  Further, the forecasts are not more accurate than several naive alternatives.  Moving from a period methodology to a cohort methodology improved forecast accuracy for certain forecasts.  [It is demonstrated that] the Bureau of the Census systematically underestimated total births in the upswing and overestimated in the downswing."
mesh_terms: D000569:Americas; D003710:Demography; D019049:Developed Countries; D003906:Developing Countries; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005298:Fertility; D005544:Forecasting; D009656:North America; D011153:Population; D011157:Population Dynamics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012106:Research; D012107:Research Design; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D014481:United States
keywords: Americas; Critique; Demographic Factors; Developed Countries; Developing Countries; Estimation Technics; Evaluation; Evaluation Report; Fertility; Measurement; North America; Northern America; Population; Population Dynamics; Population Forecast; Population Projection; Reliability; Research Methodology; United States