Measuring the accuracy of population forecasts

The accuracy of population projections is discussed, with specific reference to population forecasts for development planning purposes. The author notes that errors in making population forecasts depend on the parameter values used in the calculations, and that such errors can be avoided if the demographic models used are seen not as stochastic but as models with random parameters. "For such models the present article derives estimations of the covariance matrices of forecasts of the social and age composition of the population."