What is Leptokurtic?
The statistical distributions that have a kurtosis of greater than three are called leptokurtic. The shape can be described as a flatter or wider shape, with fatter tails. This results in a higher chance of extreme positive and negative events.
The kurtosis is one of the three main categories in a kurtosis study. mesokurtic has no kurtosis but is still associated with a normal distribution. Plateykurtic has a thinner tail and less kurtosis.
Leptokurtic Distributions are those with a positive kurtosis that is larger than a normal distribution. Normal distributions have a kurtosis that is exactly three. A distribution with a kurtosis higher than three is called a leptokurtic.
Leptokurtic distributed have heavier tails or a greater probability of extreme values compared to platykurtic and mesokurtic distributions.
What is a mesokurtic Distribution?
The distribution of mesokurtic is medium-tailed. Outliers are neither very frequent nor extremely infrequent.
The kurtosis is calculated in comparison with normal distribution.
- A normal distribution has a kurtosis value of 3. Any distribution that has a kurtosis around 3 is considered mesokurtic.
Excess kurtosis is often used to describe kurtosis. This is kurtosis + 3. The fact that normal distributions are characterized by a kurtosis value of 3 makes it easy to compare a distribution’s excess kurtosis with a normal distribution:
- A normal distribution has an excess of kurtosis equal to 0, and any distribution that is approximately mesokurtic will have an excess of kurtosis equal to 0.
What is platykurtic?
The distribution of platykurtic is thin-tailed compared to leptokurtic. This means that there are few outliers.
Platykurtic Distributions have less kurtosis compared to a Normal distribution. In other words, platykurtic distribution has:
- A kurtosis less than 3
- A kurtosis excess of less than 0.
Since the excess kurtosis in this condition is negative, it is also known as negative Kurtosis.
