RFunctions to Symbolically Compute the Central Moments of the Multivariate Normal Distribution

Kem Phillips
2010 Journal of Statistical Software  
The central moments of the multivariate normal distribution are functions of its n × n variance-covariance matrix Σ. These moments can be expressed symbolically as linear combinations of products of powers of the elements of Σ. A formula for these moments derived by differentiating the characteristic function is developed. The formula requires searching integer matrices for matrices whose n successive row and column sums equal the n exponents of the moment. This formula is implemented in R,
more » ... R functions to display moments in L A T E X and to evaluate moments at specified variance-covariance matrices included.
doi:10.18637/jss.v033.c01 fatcat:6dokhymil5dhtkuc6wf42xwkp4