INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICS AND ECONOMETRICS

Bayes’ Theorem

Bayes’ theorem follows easily from the rules of probability but is listed separately here because of its special usefulness.

THEOREM 2.4.2 (Bayes) Let events A, A2, . . . , An be mutually exclusive such that P{A U A2 U. . . U An) = 1 and Р(Д) > 0 for each i. Let E be an arbitrary event such that P(E) > 0. Then

Proof. From Theorem 2.4.1, we have

Since E П A], E П А4, . . . , E fl An are mutually exclusive and their union is equal to E, we have, from axiom (3) of probability,
(2.4.4) P(E) = X P(E n Aj)-

j= і

Thus the theorem follows from (2.4.3) and (2.4.4) and by noting that P(E П Aj) = P(£ I Aj)P(Aj) by Theorem 2.4.1. □