A link between two-sided power and asymmetric Laplace distributions: with applications to mean and variance approximations (Q2483864): Difference between revisions

This note aims to identify relationships between several distributions that constitute the background for refinement of PERT (project evaluation and review technique). Section 2 discusses the PERT motivation for the four-parameter two-sided power (TSP) distribution used as a proxy for the beta distribution, particularly in problems of risk and uncertainty assessment. Section 3 establishes the link between TSP distribution and reparameterized asymmetric Laplace distributions, proved to be useful for extending three-point approximations of arbitrary continuous distributions of \textit{E. S. Pearson} and \textit{J. W. Tukey} classical type [Biometrika 52, 533--546 (1965; Zbl 0151.24102)]. This result is applied in Section 4 to derive three-point discrete distribution approximations of the mean and variance of a continuous distribution representing a random variable, and to compare it with similar approaches appearing in the literature.