Problems with fitting to the power-law distribution

Morris Goldstein, S. Morris and G. Yen ()

The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, 2004, vol. 41, issue 2, 255-258

Abstract: This short communication uses a simple experiment to show that fitting to a power law distribution by using graphical methods based on linear fit on the log-log scale is biased and inaccurate. It shows that using maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) is far more robust. Finally, it presents a new table for performing the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for goodness-of-fit tailored to power-law distributions in which the power-law exponent is estimated using MLE. The techniques presented here will advance the application of complex network theory by allowing reliable estimation of power-law models from data and further allowing quantitative assessment of goodness-of-fit of proposed power-law models to empirical data. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 2004

Date: 2004
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (92)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:eurphb:v:41:y:2004:i:2:p:255-258

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DOI: 10.1140/epjb/e2004-00316-5

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