Modeling and Forecasting Populations by Time Series: The Swedish Case

Time series analysis techniques are used to model and to forecast populations. An autoregressive (AR) and a moving average (MA) model, which seem to fit the population of Sweden very well, are found. Forecasts are calculated using both models and are compared with the forecasts obtained by other methods. This comparison is very favorable for the time series models. Although our study is confined to the mid-year population of Sweden, there are good reasons to expect that the technique can be successfully applied to other population parameters.