In applied statistics, the Marshall–Olkin exponential distribution is any member of a certain family of continuous multivariate probability distributions with positive-valued components. It was introduced by Albert W. Marshall and Ingram Olkin.[1] One of its main uses is in reliability theory, where the Marshall–Olkin copula models the dependence between random variables subjected to external shocks. [2] [3] [4]
Let { E B : ∅ ≠ B ⊂ { 1 , 2 , … , b } } {\displaystyle \{E_{B}:\varnothing \neq B\subset \{1,2,\ldots ,b\}\}} be a set of independent, exponentially distributed random variables, where E B {\displaystyle E_{B}} has mean 1 / λ B {\displaystyle 1/\lambda _{B}} . Let
The joint distribution of T = ( T 1 , … , T b ) {\displaystyle T=(T_{1},\ldots ,T_{b})} is called the Marshall–Olkin exponential distribution with parameters { λ B , B ⊂ { 1 , 2 , … , b } } . {\displaystyle \{\lambda _{B},B\subset \{1,2,\ldots ,b\}\}.}
Suppose b = 3. Then there are seven nonempty subsets of { 1, ..., b } = { 1, 2, 3 }; hence seven different exponential random variables:
Then we have: