The Myth of Methusalah and the Uncertainty of Death: The Mortality Fan Charts

Dowd, K.; Blake, D.; Cairns, A.J.G.

doi:10.3390/risks4030021

The Myth of Methusalah and the Uncertainty of Death: The Mortality Fan Charts

Dowd, K.; Blake, D.; Cairns, A.J.G.

Authors

Professor Kevin Dowd kevin.dowd@durham.ac.uk
Professor

D. Blake

A.J.G. Cairns

Abstract

This paper uses mortality fan charts to illustrate prospective future male mortality. These fan charts show both the most likely path of male mortality and the bands of uncertainty surrounding that path. The fan charts are based on a model of male mortality that is known to provide a good fit to UK mortality data. The fan charts suggest that there are clear limits to longevity—that future mortality rates are very uncertain and tend to become more uncertain the further ahead the forecast—and that forecasts of future mortality uncertainty must also take account of uncertainty in the parameters of the underlying mortality model.

Citation

Dowd, K., Blake, D., & Cairns, A. (2016). The Myth of Methusalah and the Uncertainty of Death: The Mortality Fan Charts. Risks, 4(3), Article 21. https://doi.org/10.3390/risks4030021

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jun 22, 2016
Online Publication Date	Jul 4, 2016
Publication Date	Jul 4, 2016
Deposit Date	Oct 31, 2017
Publicly Available Date	Apr 25, 2018
Journal	Risks
Publisher	MDPI
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	4
Issue	3
Article Number	21
DOI	https://doi.org/10.3390/risks4030021
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1345381

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Copyright Statement
© 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).