Wednesday, 24 September 2008

pr.probability - Does central limit theorem hold for general weakly dependent variables?

Your double subscripts are extraneous. Let's consider a simpler situation, where we have a single family of random variables Xi.



As Yuri Bakhtin says above, your condition is not sufficient for a CLT to hold. Here is a simpler situation, however: suppose that Xi and Xj satisfy finite-range dependence. That is, there exists a positive integer R such that if |ij|geR, then Xi and Xj are independent. We will prove a law of large numbers for Xi. If you're interested, you can push it farther to prove a central limit theorem. Suppose that Xi has mean mu for each i.



Let SN=tfrac1NsumNi=1Xi as usual. Without loss of generality, we may consider indices only divisible by R: SRN=tfrac1RNsumRNi=1Xi. Let S(k)RN=tfrac1NsumN1j=0XRj+k

for k=1,dots,R, so that SRN=tfrac1Rleft(S(1)RN+dots+S(R)RNright).
Each sum S(k)RN is comprised of independent random variables, so the classical law of large numbers applies and S(k)RNtomu both in probability and almost surely. Consequently, SRNtomu.



Obviously, this argument breaks down when R=infty. In that case, the problem is no longer trivial and you will have to be more cautious with your assumptions.

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