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Random Variables

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The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics
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Abstract

Scientific statements often have a probabilistic element, for example, ‘In population Ω the distribution of individual income, I, can be approximated by a log-normal distribution’. The formal interpretation of this statement requires a moderate amount of structure, such as,

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Bibliography

  • Note. Some of the criteria used in selecting the references were clarity, availability and completeness. The Johnson and Kotz volumes are a storehouse of information about specific random variables, and Greenwood and Hartley gives extensive detail on available printed tables. The best entry to the current literature on random variables or other statistical-probabilistic topics is the Current Index to Statistics (published by the American Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 1984, volume 10, also available electronically as MathScience produced by the American Mathematics Society) which is a key-word, permuted-title index. Barlow and Proschan, David, Lukacs and Pollard are monographs on specialized topics. Comprehensive views of broad areas are given by Anderson, Chow and Teicher, Rao and Serfling. Ash gives a detailed mathematical setting for probability theory, and Lamperti quickly shows the power of the theory.

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Savage, I.R. (2018). Random Variables. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1476

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