Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 207 7 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
A frailty model represents unobserved heterogeneity using a nonnegative frailty random variable that multiplies an individual's baseline hazard. With , the individual and population survivor functions areThus the population survivor function is the Laplace transform of the frailty distribution at ; at points where differentiation is justified, . The last identity follows by differentiating the integral and dividing by .
Here for , , and . Direct integration givesThis is population hazard under exponential frailty. For every fixed the individual hazard function increases linearly. In contrast,so the population hazard increases up to , then decreases, tending to zero like . More vulnerable individuals leave the risk set earlier, leaving survivors with smaller frailties. This population decline is selection, not a decline in any fixed individual's hazard. If , survival is identically one and both hazards vanish; the positive-rate comparison is then inapplicable.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 207 7 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use Bayes' theorem with the individual survivor function. Writing , the frailty distribution among survivors has densityHenceThe conditional expectation starts at one and declines toward zero when . Survival favors the less frail individuals, precisely explaining why the population hazard under exponential frailty equals times a decreasing multiplier. The original PDF asks for conditioning on the event ; the TeX's misplaced inequality is a transcription error, not conditioning on an observed exact event time.