Beta prime distribution

Beta prime distribution is defined for ${\displaystyle x>0}$ with two parameters α and β, having the probability density function:

${\displaystyle f(x)={\frac {x^{\alpha -1}(1+x)^{-\alpha -\beta }}{B(\alpha ,\beta )}}}$

where B is the Beta function.

The cumulative distribution function is

${\displaystyle F(x;\alpha ,\beta )=I_{\frac {x}{1+x}}\left(\alpha ,\beta \right),}$

where I is the regularized incomplete beta function.

The expected value, variance, and other details of the distribution are given in the sidebox; for ${\displaystyle \beta >4}$, the excess kurtosis is

${\displaystyle \gamma _{2}=6{\frac {\alpha (\alpha +\beta -1)(5\beta -11)+(\beta -1)^{2}(\beta -2)}{\alpha (\alpha +\beta -1)(\beta -3)(\beta -4)}}.}$

While the related beta distribution is the conjugate prior distribution of the parameter of a Bernoulli distribution expressed as a probability, the beta prime distribution is the conjugate prior distribution of the parameter of a Bernoulli distribution expressed in odds. The distribution is a Pearson type VI distribution.[1]

The mode of a variate X distributed as ${\displaystyle \beta '(\alpha ,\beta )}$ is ${\displaystyle {\hat {X}}={\frac {\alpha -1}{\beta +1}}}$. Its mean is ${\displaystyle {\frac {\alpha }{\beta -1}}}$ if ${\displaystyle \beta >1}$ (if ${\displaystyle \beta \leq 1}$ the mean is infinite, in other words it has no well defined mean) and its variance is ${\displaystyle {\frac {\alpha (\alpha +\beta -1)}{(\beta -2)(\beta -1)^{2}}}}$ if ${\displaystyle \beta >2}$.

For ${\displaystyle -\alpha <k<\beta }$, the k-th moment ${\displaystyle E[X^{k}]}$ is given by

${\displaystyle E[X^{k}]={\frac {B(\alpha +k,\beta -k)}{B(\alpha ,\beta )}}.}$

For ${\displaystyle k\in \mathbb {N} }$ with ${\displaystyle k<\beta ,}$ this simplifies to

${\displaystyle E[X^{k}]=\prod _{i=1}^{k}{\frac {\alpha +i-1}{\beta -i}}.}$

The cdf can also be written as

${\displaystyle {\frac {x^{\alpha }\cdot {}_{2}F_{1}(\alpha ,\alpha +\beta ,\alpha +1,-x)}{\alpha \cdot B(\alpha ,\beta )}}}$

where ${\displaystyle {}_{2}F_{1}}$ is the Gauss's hypergeometric function ₂F₁ .

• If ${\displaystyle X\sim \beta '(\alpha ,\beta )}$ then ${\displaystyle {\tfrac {1}{X}}\sim \beta '(\beta ,\alpha )}$.
• If ${\displaystyle Y\sim \beta '(\alpha ,\beta )}$, and ${\displaystyle X=qY^{1/p}}$, then ${\displaystyle X\sim \beta '(\alpha ,\beta ,p,q)}$.
• If ${\displaystyle X\sim \beta '(\alpha ,\beta ,p,q)}$ then ${\displaystyle kX\sim \beta '(\alpha ,\beta ,p,kq)}$.
• ${\displaystyle \beta '(\alpha ,\beta ,1,1)=\beta '(\alpha ,\beta )}$
• If ${\displaystyle X_{1}\sim \beta '(\alpha ,\beta )}$ and ${\displaystyle X_{2}\sim \beta '(\alpha ,\beta )}$ two iid variables, then ${\displaystyle Y=X_{1}+X_{2}\sim \beta '(\gamma ,\delta )}$ with ${\displaystyle \gamma ={\frac {2\alpha (\alpha +\beta ^{2}-2\beta +2\alpha \beta -4\alpha +1)}{(\beta -1)(\alpha +\beta -1)}}}$ and ${\displaystyle \delta ={\frac {2\alpha +\beta ^{2}-\beta +2\alpha \beta -4\alpha }{\alpha +\beta -1}}}$, as the beta prime distribution is infinitely divisible.
• More generally, let ${\displaystyle X_{1},...,X_{n}n}$ iid variables following the same beta prime distribution, i.e. ${\displaystyle \forall i,1\leq i\leq n,X_{i}\sim \beta '(\alpha ,\beta )}$, then the sum ${\displaystyle S=X_{1}+...+X_{n}\sim \beta '(\gamma ,\delta )}$ with ${\displaystyle \gamma ={\frac {n\alpha (\alpha +\beta ^{2}-2\beta +n\alpha \beta -2n\alpha +1)}{(\beta -1)(\alpha +\beta -1)}}}$ and ${\displaystyle \delta ={\frac {2\alpha +\beta ^{2}-\beta +n\alpha \beta -2n\alpha }{\alpha +\beta -1}}}$.

• If ${\displaystyle X\sim F(2\alpha ,2\beta )}$ has an F-distribution, then ${\displaystyle {\tfrac {\alpha }{\beta }}X\sim \beta '(\alpha ,\beta )}$, or equivalently, ${\displaystyle X\sim \beta '(\alpha ,\beta ,1,{\tfrac {\beta }{\alpha }})}$.
• If ${\displaystyle X\sim {\textrm {Beta}}(\alpha ,\beta )}$ then ${\displaystyle {\frac {X}{1-X}}\sim \beta '(\alpha ,\beta )}$.
• If ${\displaystyle X\sim \beta '(\alpha ,\beta )}$ then ${\displaystyle {\frac {X}{1+X}}\sim {\textrm {Beta}}(\alpha ,\beta )}$.
• For gamma distribution parametrization I:
  • If ${\displaystyle X_{k}\sim \Gamma (\alpha _{k},\theta _{k})}$ are independent, then ${\displaystyle {\tfrac {X_{1}}{X_{2}}}\sim \beta '(\alpha _{1},\alpha _{2},1,{\tfrac {\theta _{1}}{\theta _{2}}})}$. Note ${\displaystyle \theta _{1},\theta _{2},{\tfrac {\theta _{1}}{\theta _{2}}}}$ are all scale parameters for their respective distributions.
• For gamma distribution parametrization II:
  • If ${\displaystyle X_{k}\sim \Gamma (\alpha _{k},\beta _{k})}$ are independent, then ${\displaystyle {\tfrac {X_{1}}{X_{2}}}\sim \beta '(\alpha _{1},\alpha _{2},1,{\tfrac {\beta _{2}}{\beta _{1}}})}$. The ${\displaystyle \beta _{k}}$ are rate parameters, while ${\displaystyle {\tfrac {\beta _{2}}{\beta _{1}}}}$ is a scale parameter.
  • If ${\displaystyle \beta _{2}\sim \Gamma (\alpha _{1},\beta _{1})}$ and ${\displaystyle X_{2}\mid \beta _{2}\sim \Gamma (\alpha _{2},\beta _{2})}$, then ${\displaystyle X_{2}\sim \beta '(\alpha _{2},\alpha _{1},1,\beta _{1})}$. The ${\displaystyle \beta _{k}}$ are rate parameters for the gamma distributions, but ${\displaystyle \beta _{1}}$ is the scale parameter for the beta prime.
• ${\displaystyle \beta '(p,1,a,b)={\textrm {Dagum}}(p,a,b)}$ the Dagum distribution
• ${\displaystyle \beta '(1,p,a,b)={\textrm {SinghMaddala}}(p,a,b)}$ the Singh–Maddala distribution.
• ${\displaystyle \beta '(1,1,\gamma ,\sigma )={\textrm {LL}}(\gamma ,\sigma )}$ the log logistic distribution.
• The beta prime distribution is a special case of the type 6 Pearson distribution.
• If X has a Pareto distribution with minimum ${\displaystyle x_{m}}$ and shape parameter ${\displaystyle \alpha }$, then ${\displaystyle {\dfrac {X}{x_{m}}}-1\sim \beta ^{\prime }(1,\alpha )}$.
• If X has a Lomax distribution, also known as a Pareto Type II distribution, with shape parameter ${\displaystyle \alpha }$ and scale parameter ${\displaystyle \lambda }$, then ${\displaystyle {\frac {X}{\lambda }}\sim \beta ^{\prime }(1,\alpha )}$.
• If X has a standard Pareto Type IV distribution with shape parameter ${\displaystyle \alpha }$ and inequality parameter ${\displaystyle \gamma }$, then ${\displaystyle X^{\frac {1}{\gamma }}\sim \beta ^{\prime }(1,\alpha )}$, or equivalently, ${\displaystyle X\sim \beta ^{\prime }(1,\alpha ,{\tfrac {1}{\gamma }},1)}$.
• The inverted Dirichlet distribution is a generalization of the beta prime distribution.
• If ${\displaystyle X\sim \beta '(\alpha ,\beta )}$, then ${\displaystyle \ln X}$ has a generalized logistic distribution. More generally, if ${\displaystyle X\sim \beta '(\alpha ,\beta ,p,q)}$, then ${\displaystyle \ln X}$ has a scaled and shifted generalized logistic distribution.

• Johnson, N.L., Kotz, S., Balakrishnan, N. (1995). Continuous Univariate Distributions, Volume 2 (2nd Edition), Wiley. ISBN 0-471-58494-0
• Bourguignon, M.; Santos-Neto, M.; de Castro, M. (2021), "A new regression model for positive random variables with skewed and long tail", Metron, 79: 33–55, doi:10.1007/s40300-021-00203-y, S2CID 233534544

• MathWorld article