Gompertz distribution

Gompertz distribution

Probability density function
Cumulative distribution function
Parameters	${\displaystyle \eta ,b>0\,\!}$
Support	${\displaystyle x\in [0,\infty )\!}$
PDF	${\displaystyle b\eta e^{bx}e^{\eta }\exp \left(-\eta e^{bx}\right)}$
CDF	${\displaystyle 1-\exp \left(-\eta \left(e^{bx}-1\right)\right)}$
Mean	${\displaystyle (1/b)e^{\eta }{\text{Ei}}\left(-\eta \right)}$ ${\displaystyle {\text{where Ei}}\left(z\right)=\int \limits _{-z}^{\infty }\left(e^{-v}/v\right)dv}$
Median	${\displaystyle \left(1/b\right)\ln \left[\left(-1/\eta \right)\ln \left(1/2\right)+1\right]}$
Mode	${\displaystyle =\left(1/b\right)\ln \left(1/\eta \right)\ }$ ${\displaystyle {\text{with }}0<{\text{F}}\left(x^{*}\right)<1-e^{-1}=0.632121,0<\eta <1}$ ${\displaystyle =0,\quad \eta \geq 1}$
Variance	${\displaystyle \left(1/b\right)^{2}e^{\eta }\{-2\eta {\ }_{3}{\text{F}}_{3}\left(1,1,1;2,2,2;-\eta \right)+\gamma ^{2}}$${\displaystyle +\left(\pi ^{2}/6\right)+2\gamma \ln \left(\eta \right)+[\ln \left(\eta \right)]^{2}-e^{\eta }[{\text{Ei}}\left(-\eta \right)]^{2}\}}$ ${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}{\text{ where }}&\gamma {\text{ is the Euler constant: }}\,\!\\&\gamma =-\psi \left(1\right)={\text{0.577215... }}\end{aligned}}}$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}{\text{ and }}{}_{3}{\text{F}}_{3}&\left(1,1,1;2,2,2;-z\right)=\\&\sum _{k=0}^{\infty }\left[1/\left(k+1\right)^{3}\right]\left(-1\right)^{k}\left(z^{k}/k!\right)\end{aligned}}}$
MGF	${\displaystyle {\text{E}}\left(e^{-tx}\right)=\eta e^{\eta }{\text{E}}_{t/b}\left(\eta \right)}$ ${\displaystyle {\text{with E}}_{t/b}\left(\eta \right)=\int _{1}^{\infty }e^{-\eta v}v^{-t/b}dv,\ t>0}$

In probability and statistics, the Gompertz distribution is a continuous probability distribution, named after Benjamin Gompertz (1779 - 1865). The Gompertz distribution is often applied to describe the distribution of adult lifespans by demographers and actuaries. Related fields of science such as biology and gerontology also considered the Gompertz distribution for the analysis of survival. More recently, computer scientists have also started to model the failure rates of computer codes by the Gompertz distribution. In Marketing Science, it has been used as an individual-level simulation for customer lifetime value modeling. In network theory, particularly the Erdős–Rényi model, the walk length of a random self-avoiding walk (SAW) is distributed according to the Gompertz distribution.

The probability density function of the Gompertz distribution is:

where ${\displaystyle b>0\,\!}$ is the scale parameter and ${\displaystyle \eta >0\,\!}$ is the shape parameter of the Gompertz distribution. In the actuarial and biological sciences and in demography, the Gompertz distribution is parametrized slightly differently (Gompertz–Makeham law of mortality).