Zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) distribution: parameter estimation and applications to model data from natural calamities

Abstract

This work deals with estimation of parameters of a zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) distribution as well as using it to model some natural calamities’ data. First, we compare the maximum likelihood estimators (MLEs) and the method of moments estimators (MMEs) in terms of standardized bias (SBias) and standardized mean squared error (SMSE). We then proceed to show how datasets from some recent natural disasters can be modeled by the ZIP distribution.