IIMB Management Review

Journal of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

On a New Measure of Skewness for Unimodal Distributions

Prof. Shubhabrata Das and Diptesh Ghosh
2003
Working Paper No
216
Body

In this paper we introduce a concept of skewness and suggest its measure among a class of unimodal distributions. The measure is built on the lack of symmetry of the density function around the the mode of the distribution. It is shown to satisfy all standard properties expected from a measure of skewness, including location and scale invariance. The extreme values of the measure are characterized. Although the measure is defined for a relatively narrow class of distributions, its utility is established by showing that it is applicable for most popularly used contimuous distribution families.

Key words
Skewness,Unimodal Distributions
WP_IIMB_216.pdf (354.69 KB)

On a New Measure of Skewness for Unimodal Distributions

Author(s) Name: Prof. Shubhabrata Das and Diptesh Ghosh, 2003
Working Paper No : 216
Abstract:

In this paper we introduce a concept of skewness and suggest its measure among a class of unimodal distributions. The measure is built on the lack of symmetry of the density function around the the mode of the distribution. It is shown to satisfy all standard properties expected from a measure of skewness, including location and scale invariance. The extreme values of the measure are characterized. Although the measure is defined for a relatively narrow class of distributions, its utility is established by showing that it is applicable for most popularly used contimuous distribution families.

Keywords: Skewness,Unimodal Distributions
WP_IIMB_216.pdf (354.69 KB)