A New Family of Modified Slash Distributions with Applications

Abstract

This article presents a new family of symmetric heavy-tailed distributions. This model is based on the ratio of two independent random variables; one with a normal distribution in the numerator and another with a Birnbaum–Saunders distribution in the denominator. The result is a new slash-like distribution capable of modeling high levels of kurtosis, so it can be considered as a viable alternative to other heavy-tailed distributions in the literature. Fundamental properties such as density and raw moments are derived. Parameter estimation is performed using the moment and maximum likelihood methods. A simulation study to evaluate the behavior of the estimators is carried out. Finally, the utility of the new distribution is illustrated by fitting two real datasets.