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Thursday, January 29, 2015

Clarification of Expectation

Let X be a random variable on the probability space (Ω,B,P).  Recall that the distribution of X is the measure
F:=PX1 on (R,B(R)) defined by
F(A)=PX1(A)=P[XA].
The distribution function of X is
F(x):=F((,x])=P[Xx].  Note that the letter "F" is overloaded in two ways.

An application of the Transformation Theorem allows us to compute the abstract integral
E(X)=ΩXdP as
E(X)=RxF(dx), which is an integral on R.

More precisely,
E(X)=ΩX(ω)P(dω)=RxF(dx).
Also given a measurable function g(X), The expectation of g(X) is
E(g(X))=Ωg(X(ω))P(dω)=Rg(x)F(dx).
Instead of computing expectations on the abstract space Ω, one can always compute them on R using F, the distribution of X.

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