[[!meta  title="Gompertz/Gumbel distributions"]]
[[!meta  date="2008-06-30 17:39:51"]]
[This paper](http://www.statistik.uni-dortmund.de/de/content/forschung/publikationen/forschungsberichte/Life-Table-Forecasting.pdf) by Peter Pflaumer gives a bit more technical detail to the whole Gompertz/Gumbel lifespan thing.
I need to remember that my model works, I just need a stable way of estimating the model parameters from which to start optimizing a fit.
Pflaumer derives a formula for the mode, but it is still trancendental in the force scaling parameter.

Hmm, I should see what Garrett thinks of the [economics](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.insmatheco.2006.02.012) of this distribution, since that's what it was originally developed for.
He probably already knows all about it, why didn't I think to ask last weekend?
Ah, because I started this on Sunday and saw him on Saturday :p.

I though [this](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cam.2003.12.030) aught to do it for me, but it seems their rate has an extra `-ln(P)` in it.
Rats.

Desperate times call for going back to [Gompertz' original paper](http://www.jstor.org/stable/107756).

[[!tag tags/theory]]
[[!tag tags/sawsim]]