Concave recruitment map 2026-10-31
For and strict concavity, per-capita recruitment strictly decreases because . Thus a positive fixed point is unique if it exists. A slope makes extinction unstable but does not guarantee a positive intersection: stays above the identity. A large-population restriction supplies existence; the local fixed-point stability condition remains .
For an increasing strictly concave differentiable utility satisfying Inada conditions, its utility conjugate has a unique optimizer and derivative . The dual is strictly decreasing and strictly convex. Twice differentiability of the dual additionally follows when exists and is strictly negative everywhere. Strict concavity alone allows to vanish and does not imply this additional assertion.
Log-likelihood Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The log-likelihood is the natural logarithm of the likelihood function:For positive finite likelihood, the natural logarithm is a strictly increasing function, so the maximizing parameter values are unchanged. Set where ; the same ordering then includes zero-likelihood boundaries whenever a positive finite maximum exists. For independent and identically distributed random variables, a product becomes a sum,This makes derivatives simpler and avoids forming products of tiny numbers in floating-point arithmetic. These equal-maximizer and additive formulas underlie the worked calculations in MIT 18.05, Reading 10b, section 3.1.
For the ordered sample of eight successes and two failures in likelihood function, on ,The score equation gives , hence . The negative second derivative proves strict concavity, so this is the unique interior maximum. Both counts are positive, so , while inside: the same point is the unique global maximum on . Counting only successes adds to the log-likelihood, leaving both derivatives and the MLE unchanged. For all-success or all-failure samples, the boundary analysis in maximum-likelihood estimator applies instead of an interior score equation.
The two panels below compare successes out of ten Bernoulli trials. Their peaks are at . The left panel uses relative height; the right panel uses the log-likelihood difference from each peak. These are the same comparison on two scales:A difference of means relative height , and a difference of means ; the log-likelihood scale makes small relative heights easier to see. Neither vertical axis is a parameter probability density function. The zero likelihood endpoints have log-likelihood and are outside the finite vertical range in the right panel.
Ten Bernoulli trials: relative likelihood heights and log-likelihood differences share the same peaks
. Details. Multiplying a likelihood function by a positive parameter-independent constant adds a constant to its log-likelihood. Subtracting its peak removes that constant. This is why the ordered-data and count-data curves coincide in this figure after rescaling. When differentiable, the gradient of the log-likelihood is the score function; the negative Hessian matrix is the observed information. A solution of a score equation still needs checking against other stationary points and boundaries: maximizing the log-likelihood does not automatically make it concave.
Mean-field Ising critical bifurcation 2026-10-14
For a ferromagnetic Ising model with coordination number of a lattice , its mean-field self-consistency equation is . Put . For , the only solution is zero. For , strict concavity of on gives one positive solution and its spin-reversed partner. Expanding gives , proving a continuous onset with order-parameter critical exponent . The Bragg-Williams free energy of the Ising model has a positive quartic coefficient at , so these are the stable ordered minima rather than a first-order jump.
Past exam of the communication Theory course of the University of Oxford 2007 3 c Solution 2026-10-31
Exchanging the first and third inputs, together with the corresponding outputs, leaves the channel unchanged. Concavity therefore shows that averaging an input distribution with its exchanged distribution cannot reduce mutual information. We may take input probabilities .
For , put and , so . The output distribution is and the mean conditional output Shannon entropy is . HenceIts strict concavity gives the unique stationary value . This lies in the allowed interval: for , the derivative at is , while it tends to positive infinity at zero. At the stationary value is directly. Consequently an achieving input distribution isThe resulting capacity is . In particular at , andAt all outputs are the middle symbol, so and every input distribution achieves it; the divided formula is not used at that endpoint.
Past exam of the communication Theory course of the University of Oxford 2008 1 b Solution 2026-10-31
The conditional output distributions are permutations of the same triple, so both conditional entropies equalWith input probability , the three output probabilities are , , and . ThereforeDifferentiating, the constant terms cancel because :Thus there is a unique maximum. Its stationary equation reduces to , whose root in isThe other root is negative; strict concavity proves this is the global maximum.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 23 1 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Risk aversion means that a sure mean is preferred to the corresponding risky portfolio wealth. An increasing concave utility function, with and , has this property by the Jensen inequality; strictly concave utility gives strict preference for nondegenerate risks. Differentiating the expected utility from part (a) givesAn interior optimum therefore satisfiesThis balances the expected loss of marginal utility in the good state against its expected gain in the bad state. The borrowing constraint also requires checking the endpoints: if , while would require . At both state wealths equal , soHence an optimum never puts all wealth into deposits. If , continuity and the displayed endpoint sign give an interior root, and concavity makes every such root globally optimal. Under strict concavity it is unique.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 31 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
In a two-person Nash bargaining problem, an agreement specifies a jointly feasible pair of payoffs , measured in each player's own utility function. For a finite game, binding agreements can randomize jointly among action pairs, so the feasible payoff region is the convex hull of the pure-action payoff. This permits correlated joint actions; it is generally larger than the payoff region generated by independent mixed strategies. A disagreement point specifies what each player receives if negotiations fail. Assume a compact convex set of feasible agreements and at least one agreement strictly improving both disagreement payoffs.
A vector jointly dominates if , , and at least one inequality is strict. This is joint dominance of payoff vectors; strict improvement for both is unnecessary. A Pareto optimal agreement is one that has no feasible joint dominator. A jointly dominated agreement wastes a possible gain, but Pareto efficiency alone does not settle how gains should be divided. The negotiation set in two-person bargaining isIts individual-rationality constraints keep either player from accepting less than disagreement; its Pareto efficiency constraint rules out wasted opportunities. This negotiation set is distinct from objection-and-counterobjection bargaining sets for coalitional games.
The Nash arbitration procedure selects the Nash bargaining solution by maximizing gains relative to disagreement:The objective function is the Nash product. Essentiality makes its maximum positive; compactness gives attainment. On positive gains, its logarithm is , whose Hessian is diagonal and negative definite. Thus strict concavity on the feasible convex set makes the maximizing payoff vector unique. Positive gain in either coordinate increases the product, so the solution is Pareto optimal.
The procedure respects feasibility, bargaining individual rationality, Pareto efficiency, bargaining symmetry, positive affine invariance in bargaining, and bargaining independence of irrelevant alternatives. In particular, replacing each player's utility by a separate positive affine rescaling multiplies the product by a positive constant; it does not compare one player's raw utility scale to the other's. Deleting other feasible agreements cannot change a unique maximizer that remains feasible. Symmetry under interchange of the players gives equal selected coordinates when the bargaining problem itself is symmetric.
These properties also explain why the product rule is distinguished. Normalize a positive-gain maximizer to and disagreement to by positive affine maps. The first-order inequality along a segment from to any feasible gives . A sufficiently large symmetric triangle, bounded below in each coordinate and above by , contains the normalized feasible region. Symmetry and Pareto efficiency select in that triangle. Independence of irrelevant alternatives then selects the same point in the original normalized region, and affine invariance transforms it back. This is the supporting triangle for Nash bargaining argument; the assumptions of convexity and a strict joint improvement are important. Without strict improvement, a zero product need not select a unique agreement.
For a finite game, a natural disagreement convention is each player's security level payoff:where are the two payoff matrices and are mixed strategies. Each player can independently guarantee at least its own security level. The maximin bargaining solution applies the Nash product rule using this . In this convention, “maximin” determines the disagreement payoffs; it does not replace the arbitration objective function by , which would depend improperly on interpersonal utility scales. The resulting agreement can strictly benefit both players relative to their guarantees, yet need not benefit both relative to a particular noncooperative Nash equilibrium.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 32 1 b ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The complete market makes every state-contingent consumption vector attainable. Its budget is , and expected logarithmic utility under the equally likely states is , with . Increasing utility makes the budget bind. For a Lagrange multiplier , the first-order conditions areSubstitution in the budget gives , so andEvery state receives an expenditure , rather than equal consumption. Strict concavity of logarithmic utility makes this feasible stationary point the unique global maximizer. The physical probabilities enter the utility objective; the supporting prices enter the budget, and they must not be interchanged.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 iii Paper 34 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For active-route per-flow rates , feasibility means for every resource. The defining condition for a proportionally fair allocation is that every feasible alternative satisfiesThis is equivalent to maximizing weighted logarithmic utility over the feasible set. Its gradient is , so the displayed inequality is precisely the first-order condition for this concave function. Strict concavity gives unique active-flow rates. Routes with have no utility term or actual per-flow rate to determine; set their aggregate service to zero. This is the inactive routes in proportional fairness convention.
Abbreviate the route populations as in cyclic order and let denote aggregate route service. The resource constraints areEquivalently, . Fix these two maxima as . Because utility is increasing in each active allocation, every active odd route attains and every active even route attains . Dropping terms constant in the populations, the objective becomesIf both groups are nonempty, the maximum has and derivative , giving . If one group is empty, every route in the other group gets aggregate service one. For , all cases are summarized, on active routes, byAt there are no flows and all aggregate services are zero. In particular whenever , as printed in the PDF. The per-flow rate is not generally : opposite routes can use the same resource capacities in parallel.
An exponential document size with parameter has completion hazard when a flow is served at rate . Summing over its flows gives the transition ratesThus an active odd route departs at rate , and an active even route at rate . An empty route has departure rate zero even if its opposite route is populated.
Put andFor an active odd route and an active even route respectively,Hence aggregate service is the neighboring-state ratio of this balance function of a flow-level network. Consider weights . For every birth edge,These are detailed balance equations. The total departure rate is bounded by and total arrival rate by , so the process is nonexplosive. Provided the normalizing sum is finite, its stationary distribution is thereforeThe large parentheses in the original PDF represent a binomial coefficient, not a ratio. The verified adjacent-state ratios explain why that distinction matters.
The required stability condition can be established directly from the normalizing sum. Set , and . Grouping opposite-route counts givesIf and , then , with the same bounds for the other group. Restriction to the routes attaining the maxima bounds below by . If , the upper bound is at most , which converges. ThusEquivalently every resource's offered load is strictly below its unit capacity. With positive arrival rates the irreducible chain then has the unique stationary probability distribution above. Without this condition the weights remain an invariant measure but are not normalizable; the question's probability-distribution claim implicitly needs this hypothesis.
For completeness, the normalizing constant has the four-cycle partition function expressionTo derive it when and , substitute into the double sum and use . The resulting expression iswhich simplifies to the displayed formula. Continuity within the stability region covers equal opposite loads and zero loads.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 35 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Take a riskless gross return per period and a stock whose independent multiplicative moves are and , with physical up probability . Assume . With up moves by date ,A self-financing portfolio chooses each stock holding from information available before the next move, and invests the remainder in the bank account. At any node the two possible next payoffs can be matched by two holdings because . Backward induction therefore makes the binomial market complete.
The unique risk-neutral probability of an up move is determined by the discounted-stock martingale equation:The risk-neutral measure assigns product probabilities to the successive moves. A path with up moves has physical probability and pricing probability . Its Radon-Nikodym derivative is thereforeSince , eliminate to obtain the requested terminal-price expression:The pricing density depends only on the terminal stock price even though different paths to that price have different intermediate histories.
For , a nonnegative terminal wealth with initial cost satisfiesThe utility function has derivative . Put . Its first-order condition makes proportional to , so . Choosing to satisfy the pricing budget constraint gives the binomial power-utility terminal wealthAll states have positive probability and the state space is finite, so this payoff is positive, integrable and attainable. The normalizing constant is explicit: independence givesCombining these two formulas with the terminal-price expression for gives entirely as a function of .
To prove global optimality, strict concavity gives . Because , the expectation of the right side is zero for any other payoff satisfying the same pricing budget constraint. Equality requires almost surely. Backward replication supplies its self-financing strategy, so this static optimum is attainable by trading. If and terminal wealth must be nonnegative, the only feasible terminal wealth is zero. For , the density is one and the optimizer is the riskless wealth .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 34 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Only active routes, those with , enter the proportional fairness inequality and the weighted logarithmic utility. Their rates must be positive; inactive routes have no per-flow rate to determine and may be assigned zero. This convention removes otherwise meaningless terms and .
For positive active rates, concavity of the logarithm gives, for any positive feasible competitor ,Thus the proportional fairness inequality proves that maximizes the log-utility objective. A competitor with an active zero rate has utility and cannot improve it. Conversely, if maximizes utility, the right directional derivative along at is nonpositive, giving exactly that inequality. Positive resource capacities and finitely many active routes allow a feasible allocation with every active rate positive, so an optimizer cannot have an active zero rate. Strict concavity gives uniqueness of the active rates. Hence proportional fairness is equivalent to the stated log-utility maximization.
Index the four adjacent-pair routes in cyclic order and put , the aggregate service on route . The resource constraints areThey involve every odd-even route pair, so they are equivalent toFor given maxima, increasing each active odd service to and each active even service to remains feasible and improves utility. Apart from the constant , the objective therefore reduces toWhen both groups are present the constraint is tight, and differentiation gives . If one group is empty, the other receives unit aggregate service on each of its active routes. Thus the opposite-route reduction for a proportionally fair four-cycle yields, with ,Inactive rates can be set to zero, including every rate in the empty state. In particular whenever that route is active. This proves the required formula even when other routes are empty.
For the flow-level network model, an active document's residual size retains an exponential distribution with parameter . Receiving service at rate gives completion intensity , so independent active documents give total completion intensity . Consequently the population continuous-time Markov chain hasAll death intensities are zero at . Their total is bounded by , and the total arrival rate is constant, proving nonexplosion.
Put . The required stationary weight uses a binomial coefficient, as printed in the PDF; the converted TeX incorrectly rendered it as an ordinary fraction. DefineFor an odd route, the neighboring binomial coefficient ratio iswhile its death intensity at the neighboring state is . Their product is , so . For an even route, replace by in the same calculation. This proves detailed balance and the stationary law of a proportionally fair four-cycle:A finite is essential for this expression to be a probability distribution. We determine its exact convergence condition rather than asserting stationarity for arbitrary arrival rates. LetGrouping the states by odd and even population givesWith and , the bounds and show that convergence holds exactly when . For necessity, the lower bound sums to , which diverges at or above one. For sufficiency, choose slightly larger with ; the polynomial factors are absorbed into constants times , giving a convergent geometric generating series. Thus the stability region for the reversible four-cycle flow network isEquivalently, the offered load on each resource, , , , or , is strictly below its unit capacity. For positive arrival rates this finite normalizing constant gives the unique stationary distribution of the irreducible process. At or beyond the boundary, the displayed invariant weights are not summable and do not define a stationary probability law.
If an explicit normalizing constant is desired, for , and . Hence for , in the stable region,Equal-parameter cases are obtained by continuity or directly from the positive series. In particular the empty-traffic limit is .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 ii Paper 2 5I Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Independence and the Poisson probabilities give the log-likelihoodIts score and curvature areIf some , this is strictly concave. A finite maximum is therefore the unique zero of the score when such a zero exists. Newton iteration givesStart from a finite value, compute the score and curvature, and iterate until both the score and step are small. A line search that shortens a step until the likelihood increases improves robustness. Strict concavity identifies any converged stationary point as the global maximum. A finite root need not exist, for example when all observations are zero and all , in which case the likelihood supremum is at . If all , the parameter is unidentifiable.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 iii Paper 42 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Let be the inverse marginal utility. The derivative is continuous and strictly decreasing: concavity makes it nonincreasing, and equality at two distinct points would make affine between them, contradicting strict concavity. The Inada conditions therefore make a bijection from onto . For each , the derivative of is positive below and negative above it. Consequently its unique global maximum is finite andThere is no need to differentiate to find the first derivative of this utility conjugate. Comparing the maxima at and gives, for ,Continuity of , together with the corresponding inequalities for , givesThus is strictly decreasing and strictly convex, since its derivative is strictly increasing. This proves all the asserted properties except the second differentiability, which does not follow from the printed hypotheses.
Here is an explicit Inada utility with vanishing curvature. PutThe positive integral defining makes strictly increasing. Also is negative except at one point, so is strictly decreasing and is strictly concave. Near zero is asymptotic to , and at infinity it is asymptotic to ; thus and . This smooth utility function satisfies every printed positive-domain assumption, but . At , differentiability of would imply, by differentiating ,which is impossible. Hence has no finite derivative there. More explicitly, , so its inverse function has a cube-root singularity. The twice-differentiable conclusion is false as printed. With the additional assumption everywhere, the inverse function theorem proves the intended dual differentiability with nonvanishing utility curvature:
For the financial assertions, use the positive-wealth admissible trading strategy class appropriate to the positive-domain utility function, and expectations for which the expressions are defined. A normalized terminal state-price density satisfies , , and defines an equivalent martingale measure by . A self-financing portfolio obeyswhere the holdings are measurable before the next price increment. Under the gains are a martingale when integrable; for the usual lower-bounded admissible class, localization gives a supermartingale. In particular the state-price budget constraint is . The positive-domain qualification matters: assumptions only on at positive arguments do not control its values at nonpositive wealth.
The definition of the utility conjugate gives the pointwise inequalityTaking expectations, using the state-price budget constraint, and then taking the supremum over strategies gives for every and every state-price density. Taking the two infima proves the utility duality with martingale deflators upper bound:If an expectation is infinite, use the same inequality in the extended-real sense whenever the negative parts make it well defined; no subtraction of two infinities is needed.
A complete market is one in which every terminal contingent claim in the specified claim class is attainable by a self-financing portfolio. Bounded terminal claims suffice for the uniqueness argument. In the standard finite-horizon discrete-time market, absence of arbitrage gives existence of an equivalent martingale measure by the fundamental theorem of asset pricing. To prove uniqueness, let and be two normalized state-price densities. Every bounded claim has a replicating price , and its replication has the same price under either equivalent martingale measure:Take for every terminal event . The integrable difference has zero integral over every event, hence vanishes almost surely: its positive and negative sets would otherwise give a nonzero integral. The normalized terminal state-price density is unique up to null sets. Its density process is then uniquely . This uses the usual pricing replication class, where bounded claims have bounded replicating value processes; arbitrary doubling strategies are not an admissible definition of completeness.
For logarithmic utility, direct maximization gives . In the complete market, write . The unique-density utility conjugate bound is minimized at , givingThe candidate terminal portfolio wealth is , whose cost is exactly . If completeness includes nonnegative -integrable claims, it is replicable and attains the bound. There is also an approximation proof using only bounded-claim completeness. DefineThen , , is positive and bounded, and . Replicating therefore gives an admissible terminal claim of initial cost . Since , the negative parts of have an integrable common bound. Monotone convergence after adding this lower bound givesConsequently the logarithmic terminal wealth in a complete market isThe value may be if ; the displayed formula remains meaningful, while attainment by depends on the precise admissible claim class.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 ii Paper 2 11G Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
For a discrete memoryless channel, its channel capacity in bits per use is . The Shannon second coding theorem identifies this with the supremum of rates achievable by arbitrarily long block codes with error probability tending to zero: every rate below is achievable, and no rate above can have vanishing error. The channel is used independently at each transmission, and coding rate is measured using base-two logarithms.
Let be the probability of using the second input symbol. The second output symbol occurs with probability , so . The first input has deterministic output and the second has one bit of conditional output Shannon entropy; hence andFor , its derivative is , which vanishes at . Strict concavity of binary entropy makes this the unique global maximum. Substituting givesThus Shannon's theorem supplies operational coding rates arbitrarily close to this value from below, and rules out reliable transmission above it.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 ii Paper 2 2F Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Choose a point of with both coordinates positive, so its product is positive. The set is nonempty and compact; the continuous function therefore attains its maximum there. A maximizer cannot lie on either axis, where the product is zero. It consequently belongs to and also maximizes the product on that set.
For uniqueness, the function is strictly concave on the positive quadrant: its Hessian is , negative definite. If two distinct positive points attained the same maximal product, their midpoint would belong to by convexity and strict concavity would give a larger value of , hence a larger product. This contradiction proves existence and uniqueness of the positive product maximizer. This argument is positive-product maximization on a convex set; compactness should be applied to the closed quadrant intersection, not directly to the potentially noncompact set .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 30 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Each user maintains a transmission rate . Resource measures its aggregate load and returns the resource congestion price . The user adds these feedback signals to form its route congestion price . Its increase term is the constant , while its decrease term is proportional to both its current rate and the congestion signal. This is a distributed congestion control algorithm: resources need only local loads, and users need only prices along their own routes.
There is a needed distinction in the word increasing. If it permits nondecreasing price functions, the all-zero prices are allowed. Then , so there is no equilibrium. The intended convergence statement holds when each nonempty route meets at least one resource whose price is positive at some load. This is automatic if every price is strictly increasing and nonnegative. We prove it under the more general nondecreasing assumption with this explicit condition, for finite sets of nonempty routes and nonnegative initial rates.
Write . Each is convex and nondecreasing, and the primal congestion potential isOn positive rates this is strictly concave: the sum of positive-weight logarithms is strictly concave, while the resource term is convex. Its derivatives areConsequently the gradient flow with diagonal mobility satisfieswith equality exactly at an equilibrium.
We must also prove trapping and existence of the equilibrium. For each route choose a resource on it and constants such that its price is at least beyond load . Finiteness gives common constants . If is large, a resource on a maximizing route has load at least , so the resource penalty is at least . With , therefore,Once all rates are bounded above, a rate tending to zero also makes through its positive-weight logarithm. Thus every nonempty superlevel set of is compact inside the positive orthant. A maximum exists by restricting to such a superlevel set, and strict concavity makes it unique, say . It is interior and satisfies , equivalentlyConversely every positive equilibrium is a stationary point of the strictly concave function and hence is this maximum.
Only continuity of the price functions is given, so it is useful to justify trajectories without silently assuming differentiability. Put and . The dynamics become ordinary gradient flow ascent, . The function is strictly concave on the positive orthant: its user terms are plus constants, and each penalty is a convex nondecreasing function composed with the convex load . Hence the supporting-tangent inequalities giveThe squared distance between two solutions is nonincreasing, proving uniqueness even though the vector field need only be continuous.
Nonnegative initial rates enter the positive orthant immediately: along a solution, variation of constants in expresses as a positive exponential times plus a strictly positive integral. Also , so rates cannot become infinite in finite time. The distance argument applies after any positive time and, by taking that time down to zero, also proves uniqueness for initial zero rates.
For a positive starting time, the increasing traps the trajectory in a compact superlevel set. Its derivative has finite integral since is bounded above there. It is uniformly continuous in time, being a continuous function of the state on a compact set with bounded velocity. By uniformly continuous integrable functions vanish at infinity, . Every limit point consequently has for every , since all rates are bounded away from zero. There is only the limit point , soThis establishes global convergence of primal congestion control with the needed nonzero-price condition, and supplies the zero-price counterexample when increasing is read in the weak sense.
For the alternative increasing-supply resource-price dynamics, consider the dual congestion potentialIts domain is with every . Each integrated supply is strictly convex, because is strictly increasing, and each negative logarithm of a positive linear function is convex. Thus is strictly convex. Its sublevel sets are bounded: for each , gives a linear lower bound on the supply primitive at large , whereas the negative logarithmic terms grow only logarithmically in . A route-price sum tending to zero makes on a bounded set. A minimum therefore exists in this domain.
The derivatives areIf a used resource had at the minimum, then but , so increasing that coordinate would strictly lower . Therefore the minimizer has strictly positive prices at every used resource. An unused resource has its unique minimizing price zero. At used resources its equations areThe multiplicative dynamics are . On strictly positive used-resource prices, equilibrium is equivalent to these equations, and strict convexity proves existence and uniqueness of the positive equilibrium. No full-row-rank assumption on is needed here: the strictly increasing individual supplies already give strict convexity.
If zero prices at used resources are allowed, the unqualified uniqueness assertion is false because of boundary equilibria of multiplicative resource prices. For one unit-weight route using two resources and , all three price vectorsare equilibria. At the user rate is one; the first resource has demand equal to supply, while the second has zero derivative because its price is zero. The last two vectors do not minimize . Thus the positive-price domain, or a boundary rule preventing a used resource from remaining at zero price, is essential.
Finally, the primal and dual equilibrium equations agree when and are inverse functions on the relevant ranges. For example, continuous strictly increasing prices with and have inverses satisfying the stated supply assumptions. Then is equivalent to , while both systems have . With inverse price and supply functions, the two equilibria describe the same rates and prices. Without this relation they need not agree: for one route and one resource with , and , the primal equilibrium is while the dual equilibrium is .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2010 ii Paper 3 29I Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A state-price density is a strictly positive random variable withOn the stock-state space this means a positive integrable function satisfying and . Equivalently is an equivalent probability measure with . Such measures exist because , for example exponential tilts of the uniform law with mean tuned to .
By the fundamental theorem of asset pricing, any arbitrage-free claim price is represented by such a density in the enlarged market. For payout ,with strictness because equivalence preserves the stock's nondegenerate distribution. Also almost surely, so . Hence .
When , nonnegative wealth for all stock states requires . At wealth is . The tangent inequality for the strictly concave square root gives, for ,Uniform integration gives and , so the expected linear term vanishes exactly when . Strict concavity makes equality possible only for . Thus the unique optimal holding is , including this boundary optimum without assuming an interior maximizer.
The marginal utility price density isIt is integrable and satisfies both pricing constraints: and . Therefore
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2011 ii Paper 4 29J Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Write , , both positive, and . As usual the utility expectations must be meaningful; the improvement below is supported where both consumptions and derivatives are bounded, so it produces finite strictly positive expected gains without a tail differentiation problem.
Suppose is not almost surely constant. Choose and positive-probability sets and on which respectively and . By restricting these sets if necessary, keep both consumptions bounded and bounded away from zero, and their marginal utilities bounded. Put , , and choose strictly between and . For , we haveReplace by for small positive . Agent one's utility has first derivative , and agent two's has derivative . Positivity of consumptions is preserved on the bounded support, and uniform Taylor estimates there make both actual gains positive for sufficiently small . Thus a Pareto-efficient transfer must satisfy
For given total wealth , let be agent two's consumption. The ratio is continuous and strictly increasing for , by strict concavity. The endpoint marginal-utility assumptions give as and as . Thus it has a unique solution to . Continuous dependence on follows from strict monotonicity and continuity, so this solution is a measurable wealth-sharing rule. ThereforeFor a fixed weight, it is also the pointwise maximizer of , whose strict concavity confirms uniqueness.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 44 2 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The Inada conditions give and . Differentiability and strict concavity make continuous and strictly decreasing, with range . Hence the inverse marginal utility exists. The unique maximizer in the utility conjugate is , andThe derivative formula does not require differentiability of : compare the optimizing values at and to squeeze the difference quotient between and , and use continuity of . Thus the dual is continuously differentiable, strictly decreasing, and strictly convex, since is strictly increasing.
For the requested second-derivative assertion, a curvature hypothesis is missing. Under the intended nondegeneracy for every , inverse differentiation givesThis proves the intended dual differentiability with nonvanishing utility curvature. If is only twice differentiable, it gives pointwise twice differentiability of the dual; continuous second derivatives additionally follow when .
Literal strict concavity does not imply nonvanishing curvature. An explicit Inada utility with vanishing curvature isIts derivative is positive, strictly decreasing, tends to infinity at zero and to zero at infinity. It is smooth and strictly concave, but . At , a finite derivative of would contradict differentiation of , giving . Hence is not differentiable there. As printed, the twice-differentiable-dual claim is false; it is valid with . The remaining differentiability, monotonicity and strict-convexity conclusions above hold under the printed hypotheses.

