Some laws of mortality: how well do they fit?

The goodnesses of fit over the entire life span of four models of mortality are compared using life tables from Australia and the United States. The results indicate that the five-parameter Siler model fits considerably better than the more complex eight-parameter Heligman-Pollard and Mode-Busby models. On the other hand, the ten-parameter model proposed by Mode and Jacobson fits human mortality patterns better than the Siler model. We conclude that the Heligman-Pollard and Mode-Busby models are probably misspecified. Additional research is necessary to determine (1) whether the Heligman-Pollard model can be improved by specifying it as a true hazard model and (2) whether the respecified Heligman-Pollard and Mode-Jacobson models are statistically robust, particularly with abridged life tables.