Skewness and kurtosis analysis for non-Gaussian distributions

TL;DR

This paper challenges previous claims of universal skewness-kurtosis relations in complex systems, demonstrating that such relations are not universal and depend on data size and distribution properties.

Contribution

It shows that the proposed universal relation between skewness and kurtosis is not valid for large data sets and depends on distribution characteristics.

Findings

Kurtosis saturates to a finite value for finite second moment distributions as data size increases.

The skewness-kurtosis relation is not universal and varies with distribution type and data size.

Using kurtosis to compare distributions can be misleading, especially for small data sets or infinite second moment distributions.

Abstract

In a recent paper [\textit{M. Cristelli, A. Zaccaria and L. Pietronero, Phys. Rev. E 85, 066108 (2012)}], Cristelli \textit{et al.} analysed relation between skewness and kurtosis for complex dynamical systems and identified two power-law regimes of non-Gaussianity, one of which scales with an exponent of 2 and the other is with $4/3$. Finally the authors concluded that the observed relation is a universal fact in complex dynamical systems. Here, we test the proposed universal relation between skewness and kurtosis with large number of synthetic data and show that in fact it is not universal and originates only due to the small number of data points in the data sets considered. The proposed relation is tested using two different non-Gaussian distributions, namely $q$-Gaussian and Levy distributions. We clearly show that this relation disappears for sufficiently large data sets provided that the second moment of the distribution is finite. We find that, contrary to the claims of Cristelli \textit{et al.} regarding a power-law scaling regime, kurtosis saturates to a single value, which is of course different from the Gaussian case ($K=3$), as the number of data is increased. On the other hand, if the second moment of the distribution is infinite, then the kurtosis seems to never converge to a single value. The converged kurtosis value for the finite second moment distributions and the number of data points needed to reach this value depend on the deviation of the original distribution from the Gaussian case. We also argue that the use of kurtosis to compare distributions to decide which one deviates from the Gaussian more can lead to incorrect results even for finite second moment distributions for small data sets, whereas it is totally misleading for infinite second moment distributions where the difference depends on $N$ for all finite $N$.