Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 iii Paper 49 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
A nondegenerate distribution function is a max-stable distribution if, for every integer , there are and such thatEquivalently, the suitably centered and positively scaled sample maximum of independent and identically distributed random variables with law again has law . The extremal types theorem states that every nondegenerate limiting law of normalized sample maxima is a max-stable distribution. Thus this property identifies all possible limiting types, although a particular starting distribution function need not admit any such limiting normalization.
The three standard types are the Gumbel distributionthe Fréchet distribution, with ,and the negative Weibull distribution, with ,They are max-stable distributions, as follows respectively by taking , , and . The necessary and sufficient classification is: is max-stable exactly when for , , and one of these three types . A positive affine map sends a max-stable distribution to another max-stable distribution.
For the requested threshold equivalence, set . By independence,If , then and the expansion gives , since . Exponentiation proves the claimed limit. Conversely, if , then : any subsequence with would have its powers tending to zero. Taking logarithms now gives . Since , including the continuous extension at , it follows that . Hence
The exceedance count has the binomial distribution with parameters . For and each fixed nonnegative integer , its probability mass function satisfieswhere and . Indeed , , and . If , the bound gives the degenerate Poisson distribution at zero. Summing the finitely many terms proves, in both cases,This derives the needed instance of the Poisson limit theorem directly.
Finally fix with and put . The assumed limit for the normalized sample maximum and the proved equivalence give . The second-largest order statistic is at most exactly when at most one observation is strictly greater than . This event identity holds even if observations have ties. Apply the preceding Poisson limit theorem with to obtainThe endpoint corresponds to and is already included. This is the case of the exceedance count limit for extreme order statistics.