gjm comments on Mean of quantiles - Less Wrong

1 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 09 September 2015 06:55PM

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Comment author: gjm 09 September 2015 08:02:32PM 4 points [-]

Suppose the cdf of your distribution is F, whose inverse I will call G to avoid cumbersome notation. Then your quantity is the limit of 1/(n-1) [G(1/n) + G(2/n) + ... + G((n-1)/n)], which is one Riemann sum on the way to the integral of G. An easy change of variable shows that this integral equals the mean (or doesn't exist if the mean doesn't). So that resolves question 1.

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 10 September 2015 09:06:05AM 0 points [-]

Cheers! That's just what I needed.