A minimum divergence estimation method is developed for robust parameter estimation. The proposed approach uses new density-based divergences which, unlike existing methods of this type such as minimum Hellinger distance estimation, avoid the use of nonparametric density estimation and associated complications such as bandwidth selection. The proposed class of ‘density power divergences’ is indexed by a single parameter α which controls the trade-off between robustness and efficiency. The methodology affords a robust extension of maximum likelihood estimation for which α = 0. Choices of α near zero afford considerable robustness while retaining efficiency close to that of maximum likelihood.

We introduce the sinh-arcsinh transformation and hence, by applying it to a generating distribution with no parameters other than location and scale, usually the normal, a new family of sinh-arcsinh distributions. This four-parameter family has symmetric and skewed members and allows for tailweights that are both heavier and lighter than those of the generating distribution. The central place of the normal distribution in this family affords likelihood ratio tests of normality that are superior to the state-of-the-art in normality testing because of the range of alternatives against which they are very powerful. Likelihood ratio tests of symmetry are also available and are very successful. Three-parameter symmetric and asymmetric subfamilies of the full family are also of interest. Heavy-tailed symmetric sinh-arcsinh distributions behave like Johnson S_U distributions, while their light-tailed counterparts behave like sinh-normal distributions, the sinh-arcsinh family allowing a seamless transition between the two, via the normal, controlled by a single parameter. The sinh-arcsinh family is very tractable and many properties are explored. Likelihood inference is pursued, including an attractive reparameterization. Illustrative examples are given. A multivariate version is considered. Options and extensions are discussed.

This article presents a class of four-parameter distributions for circular data that are unimodal, possess simple characteristic and density functions and a tractable distribution function, can be interpretably parameterized directly in terms of their trigonometric moments, afford a very wide range of skewness and kurtosis, envelop numerous interesting submodels including the wrapped Cauchy and cardioid distributions, allow straightforward parameter estimation by both method of moments and maximum likelihood, and are closed under convolution. This class of distributions exhibits the widest range of attractive properties yet available while retaining unimodality.