ECON 010 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Random Variable, Weighted Arithmetic Mean, Poisson Distribution
Document Summary
In the previous chapter we introduced the concept of an experiment and saw that experiments have outcomes. Definition: a random variable is a numerical description of the outcome of an experiment. A random variable associates a number to each possible outcome of an experiment, a random variable can either be discrete or continuous. Definition: a discrete random variable is a random variable whose value is obtained by counting and has a countable number of possible values. For example, an experiment could be the number of cars that pass through a toll booth. Let the random variable x = the number of cars that pass through a particular toll booth in a one day period. The number of possible values are x = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, . } X is a discrete random variable because the number of cars can be counted.