Pearson Moments
The fourth standardized moment is defined as
where μ4 is the fourth moment about the mean and σ is the standard deviation. This is sometimes used as the definition of kurtosis in older works, but is not the definition used here.
Kurtosis is more commonly defined as the fourth cumulant divided by the square of the second cumulant, which is equal to the fourth moment around the mean divided by the square of the variance of the probability distribution minus 3,
which is also known as excess kurtosis. The "minus 3" at the end of this formula is often explained as a correction to make the kurtosis of the normal distribution equal to zero. Another reason can be seen by looking at the formula for the kurtosis of the sum of random variables. Suppose that Y is the sum of n identically distributed independent random variables all with the same distribution as X. Then
This formula would be much more complicated if kurtosis were defined just as μ4 / σ4 (without the minus 3).
More generally, if X1, ..., Xn are independent random variables, not necessarily identically distributed, but all having the same variance, then
whereas this identity would not hold if the definition did not include the subtraction of 3.
The fourth standardized moment must be at least 1, so the excess kurtosis must be −2 or more. This lower bound is realized by the Bernoulli distribution with p = ½, or "coin toss". There is no upper limit to the excess kurtosis and it may be infinite.
Read more about this topic: Kurtosis
Famous quotes containing the words pearson and/or moments:
“Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely-read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely.”
—Hesketh Pearson (1887–1964)
“Just as we need to encourage women to test life’s many options, we need to acknowledge real limits of energy and resources. It would be pointless and cruel to prescribe role combination for every woman at each moment of her life. Life has its seasons. There are moments when a woman ought to invest emotionally in many different roles, and other moments when she may need to conserve her psychological energies.”
—Faye J. Crosby (20th century)