• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.759-766
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• 2013

The paper examines several classes of probability distributions with heavy tails. An (asymptotic) expression for tail probability needs to be known to understand which class a given probability distribution belongs to. It is usually not easy to get expressions for tail probabilities since most absolutely continuous probability distributions are specified by probability density functions and not by distribution functions. The paper proposes a method to obtain asymptotic expressions for tail probabilities using only probability density functions. Some examples are given to illustrate the proposed method.