Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-probability-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2021/2/b/solution

Let have the specified probability density function . Splitting the integral into the positive and negative half-lines, and using the Gamma integral for a nonnegative integer and , gives
At or , one term becomes the divergent integral of ; beyond these endpoints it grows exponentially. Consequently, the full extended-valued moment-generating function is
In particular , checking normalization of a probability distribution. All absolute moments exist. Direct integration yields
The symmetric distribution makes every odd moment zero, so
Now let have probability density function . Its moment-generating function would be
For every , one summand has exponential growth, which dominates the polynomial decay. Hence
There is no finite moment-generating function on any neighborhood of zero, but some moments still exist. Specifically,
Thus
For even , the moment is , so it is not a finite moment. For odd , both the positive and negative contributions have infinite integral, so the expected value is undefined. Cancellation in a Cauchy principal value does not define an expected value. In particular, when there are no finite positive-order moments.

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