Bayes formula for conditional expectation Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-11-05
Suppose is a probability measure with , so and . For a sub-sigma-algebra , write . If is integrable under , then on ,
This is Bayes formula for conditional expectation. It changes the underlying probability measure as well as conditioning on the available information. The set where has zero -probability, so a version there can be chosen arbitrarily.
To verify the formula, let denote the ratio. For , measurability of and the tower property give . These are exactly the defining conditional-expectation identities. For a filtration, choosing gives the usual time-indexed form. The denominator is the likelihood weight after reducing the full information to , not the original pointwise weight .
Let . Inverse images commute with complements and countable unions, so this is a sub-sigma-algebra of . The random variable is -measurable.
The assumption says that is a measure-preserving transformation. Consequently has the same probability distribution as and is integrable. It also implies for every integrable random variable , first for indicator functions, then for simple functions, and then by positive and negative approximation.
To identify a conditional expectation, take any . The assumed identity with the bounded random variable gives
Every member of has the displayed form , so this verifies all defining conditional expectation identities. Therefore
Apply part (iii), since this conditional expectation has the same probability distribution as . We conclude
This is invariance from integral duality for a measure-preserving transformation; neither invertibility of nor a second moment of is required.