ON STOCHASTIC COMPARISONS OF ORDER STATISTICS FROM HETEROGENEOUS EXPONENTIAL SAMPLES

Abstract

AbstractWe show that the kth order statistic from a heterogeneous sample of n ≥ k exponential random variables is larger than that from a homogeneous exponential sample in the sense of star ordering, as conjectured by Xu and Balakrishnan [14]. As a consequence, we establish hazard rate ordering for order statistics between heterogeneous and homogeneous exponential samples, resolving an open problem of Pǎltǎnea [11]. Extensions to general spacings are also presented.