Predictability, Complexity, and Catastrophe in a Collapsible Model of Population, Development, and Environmental Interactions

Sanderson, W.C. (1994). Predictability, Complexity, and Catastrophe in a Collapsible Model of Population, Development, and Environmental Interactions. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-94-075

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Abstract

More and more population forecasts are being produced with associated 95 percent confidence intervals. How confident are we of those confidence intervals? In this paper, we produce a simulated dataset in which we know both past and future population sizes, and the true 95 percent confidence intervals at various future dates. We use the past data to produce population forecasts and estimated 95 percent confidence intervals using various methodologies. We, then, compare the true 95 percent confidence intervals with the estimated ones. This comparison shows that we are not at all confident in the estimated 95 percent confidence intervals. Indeed, even calling them confidence intervals is quite misleading.

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