Moment Generating Functions
Continuous Distributions The Uniform distribution from a to b
The Normal distribution (mean m, standard deviation s)
The Exponential distribution
Weibull distribution with parameters a and b.
The Weibull density, f(x) (a = 0.9, b = 2) (a = 0.7, b = 2) (a = 0.5, b = 2)
The Gamma distribution Let the continuous random variable X have density function: Then X is said to have a Gamma distribution with parameters a and l.
Expectation of functions of Random Variables
X is discrete X is continuous
Moments of Random Variables
The kth moment of X.
the kth central moment of X where m = m1 = E(X) = the first moment of X .
Rules for expectation
Rules:
Moment generating functions
Moment Generating function of a R.V. X
Examples The Binomial distribution (parameters p, n)
The Poisson distribution (parameter l) The moment generating function of X , mX(t) is:
The Exponential distribution (parameter l) The moment generating function of X , mX(t) is:
The Standard Normal distribution (m = 0, s = 1) The moment generating function of X , mX(t) is:
We will now use the fact that We have completed the square This is 1
The Gamma distribution (parameters a, l) The moment generating function of X , mX(t) is:
We use the fact Equal to 1
Properties of Moment Generating Functions
mX(0) = 1 Note: the moment generating functions of the following distributions satisfy the property mX(0) = 1
We use the expansion of the exponential function:
Now
Property 3 is very useful in determining the moments of a random variable X. Examples
To find the moments we set t = 0.
The moments for the exponential distribution can be calculated in an alternative way. This is note by expanding mX(t) in powers of t and equating the coefficients of tk to the coefficients in: Equating the coefficients of tk we get:
The moments for the standard normal distribution We use the expansion of eu. We now equate the coefficients tk in:
If k is odd: mk = 0. For even 2k: