Estimation of Parameters on Some Extensions of the Katz Family of Discrete Distributions Involving Hypergeometric Functions

A two-parameter family of discrete distributions developed by Katz (1963) is extended to three- and four-parameter families whose probability generating functions involve hypergeometric functions. This extension contains other distributions appearing in the literature as particular cases. Various methods of estimating the parameters are investigated and their asymptotic efficiency relative to maximum likelihood estimators compared.