Skip to main content
Log in

An analysis of quantile measures of kurtosis: center and tails

  • Regular Article
  • Published:
Statistical Papers Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The consequences of substituting the denominator Q 3(p)  −  Q 1(p) by Q 2  −  Q 1(p) in Groeneveld’s class of quantile measures of kurtosis (γ 2(p)) for symmetric distributions, are explored using the symmetric influence function. The relationship between the measure γ 2(p) and the alternative class of kurtosis measures κ2(p) is derived together with the relationship between their influence functions. The Laplace, Logistic, symmetric Two-sided Power, Tukey and Beta distributions are considered in the examples in order to discuss the results obtained pertaining to unimodal, heavy tailed, bounded domain and U-shaped distributions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bajgier SM and Agarwal LK (1991). Powers of goodness-of-fit tests in detecting balanced mixed normal distributions. Educ Psychol Meas 51: 253–269

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Balanda KP and MacGillivray HL (1988). Kurtosis: a critical review. Am Stat 42: 111–119

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bowley AL (1937). Elements of statistics, 6th edn. Staples, London

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Finucan HM (1964). A note on kurtosis. JRSS, Ser B 26: 111–112

    MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Groeneveld RA and Meeden G (1984). Measuring skewness and kurtosis. Statistician 33: 391–399

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Groeneveld RA (1998). A class of quantile measures for kurtosis. Am Stat 52: 325–329

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Hinkley DV (1975). On power transformations to symmetry. Biometrika 62: 101–111

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Huber PJ (1981). Robust statistics. Wiley, London

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Karian ZA and Dudewicz EJ (2004). Fitting statistical distributions: the generalized lambda distribution and generalized bootstrap methods. Chapman & Hall/CRC, Boca Raton

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaplansky I (1945). A common error concerning kurtosis. JASA 40: 259

    MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Kim TH, White H (2003) On more robust estimation of skewness and kurtosis: simulation and application to the S&P500 index. Department of Economics, UCSD, Paper 2003-12

  • Kotz S, Johnson NL and Read CB (1983). Entry on kurtosis encyclopedia of statistical sciences, vol 4. Wiley, New York, 425

    Google Scholar 

  • Kotz S and Van Dorp JR (2003). Beyond beta—other continuous families of distributions with bounded support and applications. World Scientific, Singapore

    Google Scholar 

  • Kotz S, Seier E (2007) Kurtosis orderings for two-sided power distributions. Braz J Probab Stat (to appear).

  • Moors JJA (1988). A quantile alternative for kurtosis. Statistician 37: 25–32

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearson K (1905). Skew variation, a rejoinder. Biometrika 4: 169–212

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramberg JS, Dudewicz EJ, Tadikamalla PR and Mykytka EF (1979). A probability distribution and its uses in fitting data. Technometrics 21: 201–214

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Ruppert D (1997). What is kurtosis? an influence function approach. Am Stat 41: 1–5

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Seier E (2002). Comparison of tests for univariate normality. Interstat 1: 1–17

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Zwet WR (1964) Convex transformations of random variables. Mathematics Centre Tract 7, Mathematisch Centrum Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Samuel Kotz.

Additional information

The authors thank the referee for the careful review.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kotz, S., Seier, E. An analysis of quantile measures of kurtosis: center and tails. Stat Papers 50, 553–568 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00362-007-0101-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00362-007-0101-4

Keywords

Navigation