Extreme Value Index Estimation by Means of an Inequality Curve

Abstract

A characterizing property of Zenga (1984) inequality curve is exploited in order to develop an estimator for the extreme value index of a distribution with regularly varying tail. The approach proposed here has a nice graphical interpretation which provides a powerful method for the analysis of the tail of a distribution. The properties of the proposed estimation strategy are analysed theoretically and by means of simulations. The usefulness of the method will be tested also on real data sets.