Kenneth W Wachter
Biographic Data
| ID | 221876 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kenneth W Wachter |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kenneth W |
| FAMILY NAME | Wachter |
| SIGNATURE | WACHTER K W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Berkeley |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2802-2212 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 148 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Vital Rates from the Action of Mutation Accumulation
New models for evolutionary processes of mutation accumulation allow hypotheses about the age-specificity of mutational effects to be translated into predictions of heterogeneous population hazard functions. We apply these models to questions in the biodemography of longevity, including proposed explanations of Gompertz hazards and mortality plateaus
Biodemography comes of Age
Biodemography has emerged and grown over the last fifteen years, with loyal and farsighted support from its patrons. As it enters what might be called its adolescence as a field, it faces challenges along with abounding opportunities. One challenge is to continue to generate knowledge that contributes to human health and well-being. A second is to insist on high standards of quality control within its crossdisciplinary environment. Opportunities …
Methods for Census 2000 and Statistical Adjustments
This article outlines procedures for taking the US census, making adjustments, and evaluating the results. The census turns out to be remarkably accurate. Statistical adjustment is unlikely to improve on the census, because adjustment can easily put in more error than it takes out. Indeed, error rates in the adjustment are comparable to if not larger than errors in the census. The data suggest a strong geographical pattern to such errors even aft…
Relationships between period and cohort life expectancy: Gaps and lags
This paper offers an empirical and analytic foundation for regarding period life expectancy as a lagged indicator of the experience of real cohorts in populations experiencing steady improvement in mortality. We find that current period life expectancy in the industrialized world applies to cohorts born some 40-50 years ago. Lags track an average age at which future years of life are being gained, in a sense that we make precise. Our findings aug…
Tempo and its Tribulations
Bongaarts and Feeney offer alternatives to period life expectancy with a set of demographic measures equivalent to each other under a Proportionality Assumption. Under this assumption, we show that the measures are given by exponentially weighted mov
The past, present, and future of demography and the role of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Demography, within the memories of those now living,has been shaped by a few outstanding centers,the Institut National d'Etudes Demographiques,the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, and the Princeton Office of Populatio
Aids and the Elderly of Thailand: Projecting Familial Impacts
We apply aggregate demographic analysis and computer microsimulation to project the number of older Thais who will lose children to AIDS during their own lifetimes and to assess their involvement with ill children through caregiving and coresidence. Parental bereavements from AIDS are predicted to peak at around 80,000 per year between 2003 and 2007. Despite an HIV prevalence of only 2%, 13% of Thais who were over age 50 as of 1995 are likely to …
Aids and the elderly of thailand: Projecting familial impacts
We apply aggregate demographic analysis and computer microsimulation to project the number of older Thais who will lose children to AIDS during their own lifetimes and to assess their involvement with ill children through caregiving and coresidence. Parental bereavements from AIDS are predicted to peak at around 80,000 per year between 2003 and 2007. Despite an HIV prevalence of only 2%, 13% of Thais who were over age 50 as of 1995 are likely to …
Census adjustment: Statistical promise or illusion
Measuring Local Heterogeneity with 1990 U.S. Census Data
A sample covering 204,394 blocks from the 1990 U.S.Census permits measurement of residual heterogeneity from local area to local area after controlling by stratification for demographic characteristics such as race, ethnicity, age, sex as well as geogr
On the Biodemography of Aging: A Review Essay
Evaluating the slavonian census of 1698 part II: A microsimulation test and extension of the evidence
Evaluating the Slavonian census of 1698. Part I: Structure and meaning
Further thoughts on the nutritional status of the British population
Further Thoughts on the Nutritional Status of the British Population
Measuring Historical Heights-Short Cuts or the Long Way Round: A Reply to Komlos
Roderick Floud, Kenneth W. Wachter, Annabel Gregory, Measuring Historical Heights-Short Cuts or the Long Way Round: A Reply to Komlos, The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Feb., 1993), pp. 145-154
Measuring historical heights‐shortcuts or the long way round: A reply to Komlos
Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750- 1980
Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750-1980
The Future of Meta-Analysis
Elusive Cycles: Are there Dynamically Possible Lee-Easterlin Models for U.S. Births
The performance of formal demographic feedback models, like Ronald Lee's, provides a test of whether theories of endogenous fertility adjustment, like Richard Easterlin's, can explain the cyclic swings in U.S. and other births that they were designed to explain. This paper shows how the specification of a demographic feedback model determines its ability to sustain cycles of a given period and amplitude observed in data. Only a few of the many ve…
Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750-1980
Family demography: Methods and Their Application
Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750–1980
In historical accounts of the circumstances of ordinary people's lives, nutrition has been the great unknown. Nearly impossible to measure or assess directly, it has nonetheless been held responsible for the declining mortality rates of the nineteenth century as well as being a major factor in the gap in living standards, morbidity and mortality between rich and poor. The measurement of height is a means of the direct assessment of nutritional st…
The Study of Family Organizations with Formal Models
Secular Changes in American and British Stature and Nutrition
Robert W. Fogel, Stanley L. Engerman, Roderick Floud, Gerald Friedman, Robert A. Margo, Kenneth Sokoloff, Richard H. Steckel, T. James Trussell, Georgia Villaflor, Kenneth W. Wachter, Secular Changes in American and British Stature and Nutrition, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 14, No. 2, Hunger and History: The Impact of Changing Food Production and Consumption Patterns on Society (Autumn, 1983), pp. 445-481
Relationships between period and cohort life expectancy: Gaps and lags
This paper offers an empirical and analytic foundation for regarding period life expectancy as a lagged indicator of the experience of real cohorts in populations experiencing steady improvement in mortality. We find that current period life expectancy in the industrialized world applies to cohorts born some 40-50 years ago. Lags track an average age at which future years of life are being gained, in a sense that we make precise. Our findings aug…
Poverty and Physical Stature: Evidence on the Standard of Living of London Boys 1770-1870
Roderick Floud, Kenneth W. Wachter, Poverty and Physical Stature: Evidence on the Standard of Living of London Boys 1770-1870, Social Science History, Vol. 6, No. 4, Trends in Nutrition, Labor, Welfare, and Labor Productivity (Autumn, 1982), pp. 422-452
Cohort parity analysis: Statistical estimates of the extent of fertility control
Cohort parity analysis (CPA) is a method for indirect measurement of the extent and timing of the adoption of fertility control within marriage. It uses information on the parity distribution of a cohort of women of specified marriage ages and durations. A multinomial model of parity provides a convenient framework for the computation of distributional parameters describing the extent to which marital fertility control has been accepted and chara…
Graphical Estimation of Military Heights
Tempo and its Tribulations
Bongaarts and Feeney offer alternatives to period life expectancy with a set of demographic measures equivalent to each other under a Proportionality Assumption. Under this assumption, we show that the measures are given by exponentially weighted mov
Aids and the elderly of thailand: Projecting familial impacts
We apply aggregate demographic analysis and computer microsimulation to project the number of older Thais who will lose children to AIDS during their own lifetimes and to assess their involvement with ill children through caregiving and coresidence. Parental bereavements from AIDS are predicted to peak at around 80,000 per year between 2003 and 2007. Despite an HIV prevalence of only 2%, 13% of Thais who were over age 50 as of 1995 are likely to …
Evaluating the Slavonian census of 1698. Part I: Structure and meaning
Biodemography comes of Age
Biodemography has emerged and grown over the last fifteen years, with loyal and farsighted support from its patrons. As it enters what might be called its adolescence as a field, it faces challenges along with abounding opportunities. One challenge is to continue to generate knowledge that contributes to human health and well-being. A second is to insist on high standards of quality control within its crossdisciplinary environment. Opportunities …
Evaluating the slavonian census of 1698 part II: A microsimulation test and extension of the evidence
Age Group Growth Rates and Population Momentum
Samuel Preston has asserted in Population Studies that the average of the period age-group growth rates of a population averaged up to the mean generation length is a close approximation to the intrinsic rate of natural increase. This note shows that this claim is not true in general and considers what conditions make it true in special cases. These arguments lead to a reconsideration of population momentum, in particular to a study of the existe…
Measuring historical heights‐shortcuts or the long way round: A reply to Komlos
Elusive Cycles: Are there Dynamically Possible Lee-Easterlin Models for U.S. Births
The performance of formal demographic feedback models, like Ronald Lee's, provides a test of whether theories of endogenous fertility adjustment, like Richard Easterlin's, can explain the cyclic swings in U.S. and other births that they were designed to explain. This paper shows how the specification of a demographic feedback model determines its ability to sustain cycles of a given period and amplitude observed in data. Only a few of the many ve…
Census adjustment: Statistical promise or illusion
Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750-1980
Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750-1980
U.S. births and limit cycle Models
Lee’s (1974) formal demographic feedback models summarize the implications for births and age-structure of neo-Malthusian theories of baby booms such as those of Easterlin. For some parameter values, such models imply sustained cycles, so-called “limit cycles,” in births. Frauenthal and Swick recently reestimated a continuous-age version of Lee’s basic cohort model with U.S. series and, contrary to Lee’s original findings, concluded that “limit c…
The Sisters’ Riddle and the Importance of Variance when Guessing Demographic Rates from Kin Counts
Goldman (1978) has proposed a formula derived from stable population theory for estimating growth rates from certain counts of younger and older sisters in a population. Computer microsimulation outputs show extraordinarily large statistical errors for estimation when stable population assumptions are modified to allow for random variability such as would be encountered with field work on small populations. A derivation of Goldman’s formula on mo…
Primonuptiality and Ultimonuptiality: Their Effects on Stem-Family-Household Frequencies
Mathematical Demography: Selected Papers
Statistical Studies of Historical Social Structure
Statistical Studies of Historical Social Structure
The Sisters’ Riddle and the Importance of Variance when Guessing Demographic Rates from Kin Counts
Goldman (1978) has proposed a formula derived from stable population theory for estimating growth rates from certain counts of younger and older sisters in a population. Computer microsimulation outputs show extraordinarily large statistical errors for estimation when stable population assumptions are modified to allow for random variability such as would be encountered with field work on small populations. A derivation of Goldman’s formula on mo…
Statistical Studies of Historical Social Structure
"Measuring Patriline Extinction for Modeling Social Mobility in the past. "Statistical Studies of Historical Social Structure
Graphical Estimation of Military Heights
Poverty and Physical Stature: Evidence on the Standard of Living of London Boys 1770-1870
Roderick Floud, Kenneth W. Wachter, Poverty and Physical Stature: Evidence on the Standard of Living of London Boys 1770-1870, Social Science History, Vol. 6, No. 4, Trends in Nutrition, Labor, Welfare, and Labor Productivity (Autumn, 1982), pp. 422-452
Poverty and Physical Stature: Evidence on the Standard of Living of London Boys 1770–1870
To many historians, and to most of their students, the question of the impact of the Industrial Revolution upon the poor of Britain has become confused, an arcane debate of ever greater statistical complexity. This is a pity, for “the most sustained single controversy in British economic history” still has, and should have, the capacity to excite and rouse the imagination, as it did for those who began, in the first half of the nineteenth century…
Secular Changes in American and British Stature and Nutrition
Robert W. Fogel, Stanley L. Engerman, Roderick Floud, Gerald Friedman, Robert A. Margo, Kenneth Sokoloff, Richard H. Steckel, T. James Trussell, Georgia Villaflor, Kenneth W. Wachter, Secular Changes in American and British Stature and Nutrition, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 14, No. 2, Hunger and History: The Impact of Changing Food Production and Consumption Patterns on Society (Autumn, 1983), pp. 445-481
Ergodicity and Inverse Projection
In ordinary demographic projection, the starting age structure of a population ceases to matter after a time, whatever changes the birth and death rates undergo within bounds. The inhomogeneous or 'weak' ergodic theorem asserts this eventual independence of starting state. Does the same independence hold true for inverse projection? This paper proves that the answer is 'yes' provided the model life-table family satisfies certain reasonable condit…
Cohort parity analysis: Statistical estimates of the extent of fertility control
Cohort parity analysis (CPA) is a method for indirect measurement of the extent and timing of the adoption of fertility control within marriage. It uses information on the parity distribution of a cohort of women of specified marriage ages and durations. A multinomial model of parity provides a convenient framework for the computation of distributional parameters describing the extent to which marital fertility control has been accepted and chara…
Age Group Growth Rates and Population Momentum
Samuel Preston has asserted in Population Studies that the average of the period age-group growth rates of a population averaged up to the mean generation length is a close approximation to the intrinsic rate of natural increase. This note shows that this claim is not true in general and considers what conditions make it true in special cases. These arguments lead to a reconsideration of population momentum, in particular to a study of the existe…
The Study of Family Organizations with Formal Models
U.S. births and limit cycle Models
Lee’s (1974) formal demographic feedback models summarize the implications for births and age-structure of neo-Malthusian theories of baby booms such as those of Easterlin. For some parameter values, such models imply sustained cycles, so-called “limit cycles,” in births. Frauenthal and Swick recently reestimated a continuous-age version of Lee’s basic cohort model with U.S. series and, contrary to Lee’s original findings, concluded that “limit c…
Family demography: Methods and Their Application
Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750–1980
In historical accounts of the circumstances of ordinary people's lives, nutrition has been the great unknown. Nearly impossible to measure or assess directly, it has nonetheless been held responsible for the declining mortality rates of the nineteenth century as well as being a major factor in the gap in living standards, morbidity and mortality between rich and poor. The measurement of height is a means of the direct assessment of nutritional st…
The Future of Meta-Analysis
Elusive Cycles: Are there Dynamically Possible Lee-Easterlin Models for U.S. Births
The performance of formal demographic feedback models, like Ronald Lee's, provides a test of whether theories of endogenous fertility adjustment, like Richard Easterlin's, can explain the cyclic swings in U.S. and other births that they were designed to explain. This paper shows how the specification of a demographic feedback model determines its ability to sustain cycles of a given period and amplitude observed in data. Only a few of the many ve…
Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750-1980
Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750- 1980
Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750-1980
Further thoughts on the nutritional status of the British population
Further Thoughts on the Nutritional Status of the British Population
Sociology (29 works) · Demography (23 works) · Economics (16 works) · Geography (15 works) · Population (14 works) · History (11 works) · Historical Economic and Social Studies (10 works) · Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management (10 works) · Demography (9 works) · Mathematics (9 works)