Deriving Mixture Distributions Through Moment-Generating Functions

Abstract

This article aims to make use of moment-generating functions (mgfs) to derive the density of mixture distributions from hierarchical models. When the mgf of a mixture distribution doesn't exist, one can extend the approach to characteristic functions to derive the mixture density. This article uses a result given by E.R. Villa, L.A. Escobar, Am. Stat. 60 (2006), 75–80. The present work complements E.R. Villa, L.A. Escobar, Am. Stat. 60 (2006), 75–80 article with many new examples.

Keywords

• Mixture distributions
• Moment-generating functions
• Characteristic functions
• Hierarchical models
• Over-dispersed models