In probability theory, Etemadi's inequality is a so-called "maximal inequality", an inequality that gives a bound on the probability that the partial sums of a finite collection of independent random variables exceed some specified bound. The result is due to Nasrollah Etemadi.

Statement of the inequality

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Let X1, ..., Xn be independent real-valued random variables defined on some common probability space, and let α ≥ 0. Let Sk denote the partial sum

 

Then

 

Remark

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Suppose that the random variables Xk have common expected value zero. Apply Chebyshev's inequality to the right-hand side of Etemadi's inequality and replace α by α / 3. The result is Kolmogorov's inequality with an extra factor of 27 on the right-hand side:

 

References

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  • Billingsley, Patrick (1995). Probability and Measure. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 0-471-00710-2. (Theorem 22.5)
  • Etemadi, Nasrollah (1985). "On some classical results in probability theory". Sankhyā Ser. A. 47 (2): 215–221. JSTOR 25050536. MR 0844022.