IntegralFormulas - ECON520

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Trick For Calculating Integrals

Suppose you have a complicated integral, but you can express it as

Complicated integral `= int c f(x) dx `

where `c` is some constant and `f(x)` is a probability density function for some random variable. Then we know that `int f(x) dx = 1`, so

Complicated integral `=c`

For example, suppose we have

`int_{x>0} 3 exp(-x/2) dx `

Write this as

`int_{x>0} 6 * (1/2) exp(-x/2) dx = 6 * int_{x>0} (1/2) exp(-x/2) dx `

The integral on the right is an integral of an exponential density (with `beta=2`). So the answer is 6.

In this case, you could just as easily calculate the integral directly! But the trick comes in handy from time to time.

ECON520: IntegralFormulas (last edited 2006-10-03 09:43:39 by c-69-137-189-181)