Inferential procedures in stable distributions for class frequency data on incomes

This paper discusses inferential procedures for the family of stable distributions, when the data are tabulated in the form of interval frequencies. The estimation criteria used are minimum chi-square and multinomial maximum likelihood. In evaluating the theoretical probabilities corresponding to the intervals, use is made of the inversion theorem for characteristic functions. Chi-square tail probabilities for independent samples are pooled by means of theKolmogorov statistic. As an illustration, the methods are applied to Dutch and Australian income data.