Which type of kurtosis is characterized by a narrow peak and heavy tails?

The type of kurtosis characterized by a narrow peak and heavy tails is leptokurtic. This distribution indicates that the data has a higher probability of producing extreme values (outliers) compared to a normal distribution.

In other words, leptokurtic distributions demonstrate a sharper peak around the mean and more pronounced tails than a normal distribution. The high peak indicates that most of the data points are concentrated around the mean, while the heavy tails suggest that there are more occurrences of extreme values in the dataset, which can significantly influence statistical analyses.

In contrast, mesokurtic refers to distributions that have kurtosis similar to that of a normal distribution, with a moderate peak and relatively balanced tails. Platykurtic distributions are characterized by a flatter peak and lighter tails compared to normal distributions, meaning they have fewer extreme values. Normal kurtosis simply describes a distribution that conforms to the standard normal distribution characteristics, without the heavy tails seen in leptokurtic distributions.