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Evaluating Consensus Forecasts
Herman O. Stekler
Department of Economics
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
Tel: 202-994-6150
Fax: 202-994-6147
hstekler@gwu.edu
RPF Working Paper No. 2008-007
http://www.gwu.edu/~forcpgm/2008-007.pdf
July 24, 2008
RESEARCH PROGRAM ON FORECASTING
Center of Economic Research
Department of Economics
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
http://www.gwu.edu/~forcpgm
Evaluating Census Forecasts
1
Evaluating Census Forecasts
ABSTRACT
The Census Bureau makes periodic long-term forecasts of both the total US population
and the population of each of the states. Previous evaluations of these forecasts were
based on the magnitude of the discrepancies between the projected and actual population
figures. However, it might be inappropriate to evaluate these long-term projections with
the specific quantitative statistics that have been useful in judging short-term forecasts.
One of the purposes of a long range projection of each state’s population is to provide a
picture of the distribution of the aggregate US population among the various states. Thus
the evaluation should compare the projected distribution of the total US population by
states to the actual distribution. This paper uses the dissimilarity index to evaluate the
accuracy of the Census projected percentage distributions of population by states.
2
EVALUATING CENSUS FORECASTS
The Census Bureau makes periodic forecasts of the population of the United States 5, 10
or more years into the future. These forecasts are bot