----- Original Message -----
From: Ronny Richardson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2000 4:10 PM
Subject: Skewness and Kurtosis Questions
> Several references I have looked at define skewness as follows:
>
> mean > median: positive, or right-skewness
> mean = median: symmetry, or zero-skewness
> mean < median: negative, or left-skewness
>
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These are really, really poor ways to measure skewness. These are the sort
of dumb rule-of-thumb approaches commonly found in engineering stat books.
Karl Pearson proposed the mean vs median measures back in 1895. Do an
internet search for all the many variations.
I did a paper on Pearson's and Fisher's skewness and kurtosis measures. It
is available on e-mail request. It will answer your questions on kurtosis.
DAHeiser
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