ECON2303

Professor Juwon Seo

Answerkey 1: Discrete and continuous random variables

1. (Ans) (a) The probability mass function (pmf) of X is




 2/3 for x = 0

fX (x) = 1/3 for x = 1



 0 otherwise

(b) The cumulative distribution function (cdf) of X is




 0 for x < 0

FX (x) = 2/3 for 0 ≤ x < 1



 1 for 1 ≤ x

2. (Ans)



 0 when x < a

(a) FX (x) = x−a
b−a when a ≤ x < b



 1 when b ≤ x


 ( a+b − a+b ) 1 when a < a+b a+b
2 3 b−a 3 , 2 <b
(b) P ( a+b
3 < X < a+b
2 ) =
 ( a+b − a) 1 when a+b
2 b−a 3 <a

a+b
Note: When a < b, we must have 2a < a + b < 2b which implies a < 2 < b. However,
a+b a+b a+b
we do not know where 3 is located. We only know that 3 < 2 . As such, we need to
consider the two cases above.

R∞
3. (Ans) (a) We need to show that there is no c such that 1) c ≥ 0 and 2) −∞ fX (x)dx = 1.
Z ∞ Z 1
c
fX (x)dx = dx
−∞ 0 x
= c ln x|10 .

1
lnx goes to −∞ when x → 0. Therefore the condition 2) does not hold for any c.
(b) Similar to (a),

Z ∞ Z ∞
c
fX (x)dx = dx
−∞ 0 1+x
= c ln(1 + x)|∞
0 .

There is no c which makes it one.

4. (Ans) (a)

Z ∞
3x−4 dx = 1.
1

(b)  R
 x 3y −4 dy = 1 − x−3 for x ≥ 1
1
FX (x) = P (X ≤ x) =
 0 otherwise