Properties of Burr distribution and its application to heavy-tailed survival time data

Abstract

Abstract Burr distribution is Burr Type XII distribution which is one among the twelve types of the continuous distributions in Burr system. It has two positive shape parameters, namely k and c. It is implied from the probability density function which can be either decreasing or unimodal, and the hazard rate function which can be either decreasing or upside-down bathtub-shaped. The other distributional properties and the moment properties of Burr distribution will be discussed in more detail. By considering these properties, we will study its tail behaviour. To estimate the parameters k and c, the maximum likelihood method will be considered. Based on the properties of the data representing the remission time of bladder cancer patients, we infer that Burr distribution is suitable to model the data. The goodness-of-fit using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test shows that Burr distribution fits well to the data.