Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/iii/paper-206/5/a/solution

For a weakly stationary process, every observation has the same finite expectation . Linearity of expectation, without any assumption of independence, gives
The variance is a sum of all pairwise covariances:
For a real-valued weakly stationary process, the autocovariance is even. There are pairs at lag zero and pairs in each direction at positive lag . Therefore
Positive autocovariances inflate the uncertainty relative to the independent-observation formula; negative terms may reduce it. An unbiased estimator need not have variance tending to zero: a process consisting of the same random variable at every time is weakly stationary, but averaging cannot reduce its variance.

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