----- Original Message -----
From: Robert J. MacG. Dawson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Glen Barnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2000 11:21 PM
Subject: Re: Skewness and Kurtosis Questions
>
> (2) Distinguishing between peakedness and heavy-tailedness is to some
> extent a false dichotomy (compare: "I'm not overweight, I'm
> undertall!"), as tails are heavy or light by comparison with the middle
> of the distribution. For tails of a certain length to result in
> leptokurtosis [which sounds like an occupational lung disease anyway]
> there must be a tight peak in the middle to hold the variance down.
Essentially, yes. However, with some restrictions, you can make the
center relatively flatter or more peaked at a given level of kurtosis.
Glen
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