English

The Difference-of-Log-Normals Distribution: Properties, Estimation, and Growth

Methodology 2023-02-14 v1 Statistics Theory General Finance Statistics Theory

Abstract

This paper describes the Difference-of-Log-Normals (DLN) distribution. A companion paper makes the case that the DLN is a fundamental distribution in nature, and shows how a simple application of the CLT gives rise to the DLN in many disparate phenomena. Here, I characterize its PDF, CDF, moments, and parameter estimators; generalize it to N-dimensions using spherical distribution theory; describe methods to deal with its signature ``double-exponential'' nature; and use it to generalize growth measurement to possibly-negative variates distributing DLN. I also conduct Monte-Carlo experiments to establish some properties of the estimators and measures described.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2302.02486,
  title  = {The Difference-of-Log-Normals Distribution: Properties, Estimation, and Growth},
  author = {Robert Parham},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2302.02486},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T08:32:32.078Z