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Spatial weighting improves accuracy in small-area demographic forecasts of urban census tract populations

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Abstract

Existing research in small-area demographic forecasting suffers from two important limitations: (1) a paucity of studies that quantify patterns of error in either total or age/sex-specific estimates and (2) limited methodological innovation aimed specifically at improving the accuracy of such forecasts. This paper attempts to fill, in part, these gaps in existing research by presenting a comparative evaluation of the accuracy of standard and spatially-weighted Hamilton–Perry forecasts for urbanized census tracts within incorporated New Mexico municipalities. These comparative forecasts are constructed for a 10-year horizon (base 1 April 2000 and target 1 April 2010), then compared to the results of the 2010 Census in an ex post facto evaluation. Results are presented for the standard Hamilton–Perry forecasts as well as two sets that incorporate two common variants of spatial weights to improve forecast accuracy. Findings are discussed in the context of what is currently known about error in small-area demographic forecasts and with an eye toward continued innovations.

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Notes

  1. Mapping to specific street segments: see Drummond 1995, Karimi and Durcik 2004 for general explanations and Baker et al. 2012 for demographic examples.

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Acknowledgments

This manuscript has been greatly improved by the suggestions made by two anonymous referees as well as Dr. Elin Charles-Edwards, Associate Editor for the Journal of Population Research. This research was supported by an annual appropriation to Geospatial and Population Studies by the Legislature of the State of New Mexico to support the Census Data Dissemination and Demographic Analysis project. While we wish to acknowledge these contributions, any errors or omissions in either logic or content remain the responsibility of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geospatial and Population Studies, 1 University of New Mexico, MSC 063510, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA

    Jack Baker, Adélamar Alcántara, Xiaomin Ruan & Srini Vasan

  2. Mid-Region Council of Governments, 809 Copper NW, Albuquerque, NM, 87102, USA

    Kendra Watkins

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  1. Jack Baker
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  2. Adélamar Alcántara
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Correspondence to Jack Baker.

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Baker, J., Alcántara, A., Ruan, X. et al. Spatial weighting improves accuracy in small-area demographic forecasts of urban census tract populations. J Pop Research 31, 345–359 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12546-014-9137-1

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