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I have two independent groups and they seems to form a Pareto distribution when the histograms are looked at. Is there a particular hypothesis test that is specifically made to compare the means of such distributions?

I should also mention that the distributions are highly unbalanced (one group has 1000 instances and the other has 35,000 instances).

I want to check if the mean of one group is greater than the mean of the other group.

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With such huge sample sizes, you will certainly reject the null; it may be better to focus on measuring the size of the difference than testing for it.

In the case that the lower limit of both Pareto distributions ($x_m$ Wikipedia's parameterization) is the same, the test is straightforward -- it amounts to testing equality of the $\alpha$ parameter.

The mean, when it exists, is $\frac{\alpha x_m}{\alpha-1}$, which increases as $\alpha$ decreases toward 1.

Note that the log of a Pareto random variable is a shifted exponential whose lower limit (shift parameter) is $\log(x_m)$, and $\alpha$ is the rate parameter. So let's proceed this way -- by working with the logs.

In the case that $x_m$ is common to both groups but unknown, you could estimate its log by the smallest observation in either group, subtracting it from all other log-values (and then discarding that observation from whichever sample it occurred in).

You could then compare the means of the resulting exponentials via an F-test, as here (the ratio of the means of the shifted logs $\bar{X}/\bar{Y}$ should be $\sim F_{2n_x,2n_y}$), or you could do a straight likelihood ratio test. They should give very similar results (at considerably smaller sample sizes than yours they can differ more).

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  • $\begingroup$ How much do we have to worry about non-existing true means here? $\endgroup$
    – Michael M
    Commented Aug 29, 2016 at 8:10
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    $\begingroup$ @MichaelM Since the hypothesis was that the means were equal, rather than that the parameters were equal or that the medians were equal or that the distribution functions were the same, we have to worry about the existence of the population mean. The test I discuss would work for comparing samples from two Pareto-distributed populations even when $\alpha\leq 1$ but it would no longer be possible to test the hypothesis that was being asked about. Whether the OP really meant to test means as such or something more general is really a question for the OP, I think. $\endgroup$
    – Glen_b
    Commented Aug 29, 2016 at 8:22
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Pareto might not have a finite mean, so this comparison simply might not be reasonable.

You could make a simulation by bootstrapping from your samples and get a pretty good idea of if one group is larger than the other.

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