On the existence of a normal approximation to the distribution of the ratio of two independent normal random variables

Eloísa Díaz-Francés () and Francisco Rubio

Statistical Papers, 2013, vol. 54, issue 2, 309-323

Abstract: The distribution of the ratio of two independent normal random variables X and Y is heavy tailed and has no moments. The shape of its density can be unimodal, bimodal, symmetric, asymmetric, and/or even similar to a normal distribution close to its mode. To our knowledge, conditions for a reasonable normal approximation to the distribution of Z = X/Y have been presented in scientific literature only through simulations and empirical results. A proof of the existence of a proposed normal approximation to the distribution of Z, in an interval I centered at β = E(X) /E(Y), is given here for the case where both X and Y are independent, have positive means, and their coefficients of variation fulfill some conditions. In addition, a graphical informative way of assessing the closeness of the distribution of a particular ratio X/Y to the proposed normal approximation is suggested by means of a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2013

Keywords: Coefficient of variation; Ratio of normal means; ROC curve; 62E17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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DOI: 10.1007/s00362-012-0429-2

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