Thirty years on: A review of the Lee–Carter method for forecasting mortality

The introduction of the Lee–Carter (LC) method marked a breakthrough in mortality forecasting, providing simple yet powerful data-driven stochastic approach. has merit capturing dynamics change by single time index that is almost invariably linear. This thirtieth anniversary review its 1992 publication examines LC and large body research it since spawned. We first describe present 30-year ex post evaluation original forecast for U.S. mortality. then most prominent extensions relation to limitations they sought address. With focus on efficacy various extensions, we existing evaluations comparisons. To conclude, juxtapose two main statistical approaches used, discuss further issues, identify several potential avenues future research.