Mean-preserving Spread
In probability and statistics, a mean-preserving spread (MPS) is a change from one probability distribution A to another probability distribution B, where B is formed by spreading out one or more portions of A's probability density function or probability mass function while leaving the mean (the expected value) unchanged. As such, the concept of mean-preserving spreads provides a stochastic ordering of equal-mean gambles (probability distributions) according to their degree of risk; this ordering is partial, meaning that of two equal-mean gambles, it is not necessarily true that either is a mean-preserving spread of the other. Distribution A is said to be a mean-preserving contraction of B if B is a mean-preserving spread of A. Ranking gambles by mean-preserving spreads is a special case of ranking gambles by second-order stochastic dominance – namely, the special case of equal means: If B is a mean-preserving spread of A, then A is second-order stochastically dominant ...
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Probability
Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1, where, roughly speaking, 0 indicates impossibility of the event and 1 indicates certainty."Kendall's Advanced Theory of Statistics, Volume 1: Distribution Theory", Alan Stuart and Keith Ord, 6th Ed, (2009), .William Feller, ''An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications'', (Vol 1), 3rd Ed, (1968), Wiley, . The higher the probability of an event, the more likely it is that the event will occur. A simple example is the tossing of a fair (unbiased) coin. Since the coin is fair, the two outcomes ("heads" and "tails") are both equally probable; the probability of "heads" equals the probability of "tails"; and since no other outcomes are possible, the probability of either "heads" or "tails" is 1/2 (which could also be written ...
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