A Family of Truncated Positive Distributions

Abstract

In this paper, a new family of continuous distributions with positive support is introduced. This family is generated by a truncation of the family of univariate symmetrical distributions. In this new family of distributions, general properties, such as moments, asymmetry and kurtosis coefficients, are derived. Particular cases of interest based on the normal, logistic, Laplace and Cauchy models are discussed in depth. The estimation of parameters is carried out by applying moments and maximum likelihood methods. Also, a simulation study was conducted to illustrate the good performance of estimators. An application to the Survival Times (in days) of Guinea Pigs dataset is included, where the special cases of distributions in this family are fitted. The option which provides the best fit is ultimately chosen. An R package, called “tpn”, has been implemented, which includes the relevant cases of interest in this family.

Keywords

• positive truncation
• likelihood
• symmetric distributions
• tpn package