TITLE:
Distribution of the Median in Samples from the Laplace Distribution
AUTHORS:
John Lawrence
KEYWORDS:
Quantile; Generalized Hypergeometric Function
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Statistics,
Vol.3 No.6,
December
31,
2013
ABSTRACT:
The Laplace distribution is one of the oldest defined and studied distributions. In the one-parameter model (location parameter only), the sample median is the maximum likelihood estimator and is asymptotically efficient. Approximations for the variance of the sample median for small to moderate sample sizes have been studied, but no exact formula has been published. In this article, we provide an exact formula for the probability density function of the median and an exact formula for the variance of the median.