Abstract
We study the limit distribution of partial sums with a random number of terms following a class of mixed Poisson distributions. The resulting weak limit is a mixture between a normal distribution and an exponential family, which we call by normal exponential family (NEF) laws. A new stability concept is introduced and a relationship between
α
-stable distributions and NEF laws is established. We propose the estimation of the NEF model parameters through the method of moments and also by the maximum likelihood method via an Expectation–Maximization algorithm. Monte Carlo simulation studies are addressed to check the performance of the proposed estimators, and an empirical illustration of the financial market is presented.