Statistics – Understanding moment about mean

descriptive statisticsstatistics

I'm trying to calculate the $3^{rd}$ moment about mean $(\bar x)$ of a grouped data which in essence is the skewness. I have these two formulae:
$$i.\space \alpha_3=\frac{\sum f(x_i-\bar x)^3}{nS^3} $$
$$ii.\space m_3=\frac{1}{n}\sum f(x_i-\bar x )^3 $$

Could someone explain the difference between the two and highlight under what cirmustance is either of the formulae applicable.

Best Answer

Statistical moments give information about the location and characteristics of a given probability distribution. In particular central moments or moments referred to the mean of the distribution tell us whether the distribution is symmetrical or it is peaky when compared with the standard normal distribution.

Skewness is calculated from the 3rd central moment and it is a measure of the asymmetry of the distribution, there are other measures of skewness but by far the simplest and more widely used is the Pearson's moment coefficient of skewness, defined as the 3rd central moment divided by $\sigma^3$.

The second relation you have is the third moment; used to define the skewness which is the relation you have written first.

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