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A random forest algorithm to improve the Lee–Carter mortality forecasting: impact on q-forward

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Abstract

Increased life expectancy in developed countries has led researchers to pay more attention to mortality projection to anticipate changes in mortality rates. Following the scheme proposed in Deprez et al. (Eur Actuar J 7(2):337–352, 2017) and extended by Levantesi and Pizzorusso (Risks 7(1):26, 2019), we propose a novel approach based on the combination of random forest and two-dimensional P-spline, allowing for accurate mortality forecasting. This approach firstly provides a diagnosis of the limits of the Lee–Carter mortality model through the application of the random forest estimator to the ratio between the observed deaths and their estimated values given by a certain model, while the two-dimensional P-spline are used to smooth and project the random forest estimator in the forecasting phase. Further considerations are devoted to assessing the demographic consistency of the results. The model accuracy is evaluated by an out-of-sample test. Finally, we analyze the impact of our model on the pricing of q-forward contracts. All the analyses have been carried out on several countries by using data from the Human Mortality Database and considering the Lee–Carter model.

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(source: James et al. (2017))

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Statistics, Sapienza University of Rome, Viale Regina Elena, 295/G, 00161, Rome, Italy

    Susanna Levantesi & Andrea Nigri

Authors
  1. Susanna Levantesi
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  2. Andrea Nigri
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Correspondence to Susanna Levantesi.

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Communicated by Philippe de Peretti.

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A Appendix

A Appendix

See Figs. 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.

Fig. 7
figure 7

Variable importance. \(\%IncNodePurity\). Ages 20–90 and years 1947–2014

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Fig. 8
figure 8

\(\hat{\psi }_{\mathbf {s}}\) smoothed values (1947–2000) and extrapolated values (2000–2014). Results from MortalitySmooth package. Male population. Age 40–100

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Fig. 9
figure 9

\(\hat{\psi }_{\mathbf {s}}\) smoothed values (1947–2000) and extrapolated values (2000–2014). Results from MortalitySmooth package. Female population. Age 40–100

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Fig. 10
figure 10

\(\hat{\psi }_{\mathbf {s}}\) smoothed values (1947–2000) and extrapolated values (2000–2014). Results from MortalitySmooth package. Male population. Age 60–100

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Fig. 11
figure 11

\(\hat{\psi }_{\mathbf {s}}\) smoothed values (1947–2000) and extrapolated values (2000–2014). Results from MortalitySmooth package. Female population. Age 60–100

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Levantesi, S., Nigri, A. A random forest algorithm to improve the Lee–Carter mortality forecasting: impact on q-forward. Soft Comput 24, 8553–8567 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00500-019-04427-z

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