Lognormal sum approximation with a variant of Type IV Pearson distribution

Abstract

In this paper, a variant of the Type IV Pearson distribution is proposed to approximate the distribution of the sum of lognormal random variables. Numerical and computer simulations show that independent of the statistical characteristics of the lognormal sum distribution, the Type IV Pearson variant outperforms the standard Type IV Pearson distribution and the normal variant distribution in accurately approximating the lognormal sum distribution for a whole probability range.