Abstract
Moving (weighted) average techniques provide a flexible tool for the graduation (smoothing) of vital rates. As is shown in the present paper, one may construct linear graduation methods which are superior with respect to some formal evaluation criteria, but such ‘improved’ methods lack an important robustness property which the moving average graduation techniques possess and which is a main motivation for their use. A linear graduation technique is an estimation method, and an important consideration in the evaluation of its properties is the class for which it is unbiased, i.e., the class of functions which it reproduces unchanged. A classical test usually said to be a chi-square test of the goodness-of-fit of a graduation is revealed to be a test of the hypothesis that the graduation method is indeed unbiased for the set of theoretical rates actually estimated, and its properties are investigated along with those of alternative chi-square tests.
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