Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 34 4 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Let be the true density and the announced density. The advantage of truthful reporting for the logarithmic scoring rule isThe Kullback-Leibler divergence is nonnegative, with equality exactly when the densities agree almost everywhere. For instance, Jensen inequality gives ; equality requires a constant likelihood ratio on the true support and no remaining mass outside it. ConsequentlyThis proves strict propriety when the expected log scores are well defined, for example with a finite true expected log density. A forecast assigning zero density to a set of positive true probability has score there and cannot outperform the truth. The hint's strict must be corrected to to allow its equality case.