The pure descent statistic on permutations

We introduce a new statistic based on permutation descents which has a distribution given by the Stirling numbers of the first kind, i.e., with the same distribution as for the number of cycles in permutations. We study this statistic on the sets of permutations avoiding one pattern of length three by giving bivariate generating functions. As a consequence, new classes of permutations enumerated by the Motzkin numbers are obtained. Finally, we deduce results about the popularity of the pure descents in all these restricted sets. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.