Demographic forecasting with a dynamic stochastic microsimulation model

Abstract

This paper summarizes some of the main features of demographic microsimulatiori modeling, including a comparison with other demographic forecasting techniques. It also presents a dynamic stochastic microsimulation model, MOSART, which projects the population, labor force, and education level. This model illustrates some of the basic principles of forecasting by means of microsimulation. The two most distinctive features of the model is that it is based on a large real sample of the population (as opposed to a synthetic sample) and that it is programmed in an object oriented language. An appendix gives a brief general survey of the use of rnicrosimulation models in Norway.