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Skewness And Kurtosis Properties Of Income Distribution Models

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  • JAMES B. MCDONALD
  • JEFF SORENSEN
  • PATRICK A. TURLEY

Abstract

This paper explores the ability of some popular income distributions to model observed skewness and kurtosis. We present the generalized beta type 1 (GB1) and type 2 (GB2) distributions’ skewness-kurtosis spaces and clarify and expand on previously known results on other distributions’ skewness-kurtosis spaces. Data from the Luxembourg Income Study are used to estimate sample moments and explore the ability of the generalized gamma, Dagum, Singh-Maddala, beta of the first kind, beta of the second kind, GB1, and GB2 distributions to accommodate the skewness and kurtosis values. The GB2 has the flexibility to accurately describe the observed skewness and kurtosis.
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  • James B. Mcdonald & Jeff Sorensen & Patrick A. Turley, 2013. "Skewness And Kurtosis Properties Of Income Distribution Models," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(2), pages 360-374, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:59:y:2013:i:2:p:360-374
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/roiw.2013.59.issue-2
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    4. Safari, Muhammad Aslam Mohd & Masseran, Nurulkamal & Ibrahim, Kamarulzaman & AL-Dhurafi, Nasr Ahmed, 2020. "The power-law distribution for the income of poor households," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 557(C).
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    7. Jones, A. & Lomas, J. & Rice, N., 2014. "Going Beyond the Mean in Healthcare Cost Regressions: a Comparison of Methods for Estimating the Full Conditional Distribution," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 14/26, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    8. Vladimir Hlasny, 2021. "Parametric representation of the top of income distributions: Options, historical evidence, and model selection," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1217-1256, September.
    9. Enrico Fabrizi & Maria Rosaria Ferrante & Carlo Trivisano, 2020. "A functional approach to small area estimation of the relative median poverty gap," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 183(3), pages 1273-1291, June.
    10. Andrew M. Jones & James Lomas & Peter T. Moore & Nigel Rice, 2016. "A quasi-Monte-Carlo comparison of parametric and semiparametric regression methods for heavy-tailed and non-normal data: an application to healthcare costs," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 179(4), pages 951-974, October.
    11. Duangkamon Chotikapanich & William E. Griffiths & Gholamreza Hajargasht & Wasana Karunarathne & D. S. Prasada Rao, 2018. "Using the GB2 Income Distribution," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-24, April.
    12. Wang, Frank Xuyan, 2021. "Shape factor asymptotic analysis II," MPRA Paper 110827, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Wang, Frank Xuyan, 2019. "Shape Factor Asymptotic Analysis I," MPRA Paper 93357, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Sriubaite, I. & Harris, A. & Jones, A.M. & Gabbe, B., 2020. "Economic Consequences of Road Traffic Injuries. Application of the Super Learner algorithm," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 20/20, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    15. McDonald, James B. & Sorensen, Jeff, 2017. "Academic salary compression across disciplines and over time," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 87-104.
    16. Ariston Karagiorgis & Antonis Ballis & Konstantinos Drakos, 2024. "The Skewness‐Kurtosis plane for cryptocurrencies' universe," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 2543-2555, April.
    17. Jingjing Bai & Wei Gu & Xiaodong Yuan & Qun Li & Feng Xue & Xuchong Wang, 2015. "Power Quality Prediction, Early Warning, and Control for Points of Common Coupling with Wind Farms," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-18, August.
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    19. Higbee, Joshua D. & Jensen, Jonathan E. & McDonald, James B., 2019. "The asymmetric log-Laplace distribution as a limiting case of the generalized beta distribution," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 73-78.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C16 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Econometric and Statistical Methods; Specific Distributions
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution

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