Sample and population exponents of generalized Taylor's law

DOI10.1073/PNAS.1505882112zbMATH Open1357.60031arXiv1412.5026OpenAlexW2131661345WikidataQ35796213 ScholiaQ35796213MaRDI QIDQ2962286FDOQ2962286

Authors: Andrea Giometto, Marco Formentin, A. Rinaldo, Joel E. Cohen, Amos Maritan 

Publication date: 16 February 2017

Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Taylor's law (TL) states that the variance $V$ of a non-negative random variable is a power function of its mean $M$, i.e. $V=a{M}^b$. The ubiquitous empirical verification of TL, typically displaying sample exponents $bsimeq2$, suggests a context-independent mechanism. However, theoretical studies of population dynamics predict a broad range of values of $b$. Here, we explain this apparent contradiction by using large deviations theory to derive a generalized TL in terms of sample and populations exponents $b_{jk}$ for the scaling of the $k$-th vs the $j$-th cumulant (conventional TL is recovered for $b=b_{12}$), with the sample exponent found to depend predictably on the number of observed samples. Thus, for finite numbers of observations one observes sample exponents $b_{jk}simeqk/j$ (thus $bsimeq2$) independently of population exponents. Empirical analyses on two datasets support our theoretical results.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.5026

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Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Probability distributions: general theory (60E05) Large deviations (60F10) Applications of statistics to environmental and related topics (62P12)

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• Title not available (Why is that?)
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• Heterogeneous `proportionality constants' -- a challenge to Taylor's power law for temporal fluctuations in abundance
• Stochastic effects in mean-field population growth: the quasi-Gaussian approximation to the case of a Taylor's law-distributed substrate
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• Taylor's Law Holds for Finite OEIS Integer Sequences and Binomial Coefficients
• Integer sequences with regularly varying counting functions have power-law variance functions
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