The Lee-Carter Automatic Retrieval Engine (LAR-E): A User-Friendly, Web-Based Implementation of the Lee-Carter Mortality Forecast Method, with Extensions

Webb Sprague, University of California, Berkeley

This paper will present LAR-E (the Lee-Carter Automatic Retrieval Engine), a web-based application for running, displaying, and storing mortality projections based on Ronald Lee and Lawrence Carter's algorithm first published in 1992. LAR-E implements several extensions to this method, including the coherent projection algorithm described in 2005 by Li and Lee, corrections for missing data described in Li, Lee and Tuljapurkar in 2004, and the modifications for two-sex populations in 2000 by Lee. The paper will be organized into two sections: the history of and theory of the Lee Carter forecasting method as it applies to this application, and a description of the software architecture and its use. I will end with some thoughts about software development for population applications.