This thesis develops a methodology for the construction of generalized families of probability distributions in the quantile statistical universe, that is, distributions specified in terms of their quantile functions. The main benefit of the proposed methodology is that it generates quantile-based distributions with skewness-invariant measures of kurtosis. The skewness and kurtosis can therefore be identified and analyzed separately. The key contribution of this thesis is the development of a new type of the generalized lambda distribution (GLD), using the quantile function of the generalized Pareto distribution as the basic building block (in the literature each different type of the GLD is incorrectly referred to as a parameterization of the GLD – in this thesis the term type is used). The parameters of this new type can, contrary to existing types, easily be estimated with method of L-moments estimation, since closed-form expressions are available for the estimators as well as for their asymptotic standard errors. The parameter space and the shape properties of the new type are discussed in detail, including its characterization through L-moments. A simple estimation algorithm is presented and utilization of the new type in terms of data fitting and approximation of probability distributions is illustrated. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Statistics / unrestricted