Assessing uncertainty in the American Indian Trust Fund

TL;DR

This paper develops a method to assess uncertainty in the fiscal balances of the American Indian Trust Fund by using multiple imputation and time series models to handle missing and unreliable data from 1887 to 2007.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining multiple imputation and time series analysis to quantify uncertainty in historical trust fund balances.

Findings

Distribution of balances shows significant uncertainty due to data gaps.

Method provides a range of plausible balances rather than a single estimate.

Approach enhances transparency in legal and financial assessments.

Abstract

Fiscal year-end balances of the Individual Indian Money System (a part of the Indian Trust) were constructed from data related to money collected in the system and disbursed by the system from 1887 to 2007. The data set of fiscal year accounting information had a high proportion of missing values, and much of the available data did not satisfy basic accounting relationships. Instead of just calculating a single estimate and arguing to the Court that the assumptions needed for the computation were reasonable, a distribution of calculated balances was developed using multiple imputation and time series models. These provided information to assess the uncertainty of the estimate due to missing and questionable data.