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I am now working on R. Durrett's Probability Theory and Examples.

In his book, I am asked to construct a martingale $(X_n)$ satisfying the following three conditions.

(1) $P(X_n=a$ i.o.$)=1, a=-1,0,1$

(2) $\sup_n|X_n|<\infty$

(3) For some preassigned $p \in (0,1/2)$, $P(X_n=1),P(X_n=-1)\rightarrow p, P(X_n=0) \rightarrow 1-2p$

So that this martingale converges in distribution but not a.s. or in probability.

I know there already exists an answered question regarding (1)&(2), but so far I haven't found any identical question. So I guess this question is not a duplicate.

I have been spending 2 days and could not come up with an example. Especially, condition (3) is hard to manage since I cannot make use of the similar trick used in the answer of Martingale oscillating between three values

Any hint would be appreciated! Thanks and regards.

Davide Giraudo
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Mhr
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    I think you can adapt your linked example. Take a "trigger" $(Y_n)$: independent r.v. with values in ${0,1}$ and with $\mathbb{P} (Y_n = 0) = 1-1/n$. Start from $X_0 = 0$. Now, if $Y_n = 0$ and $|X_n| \leq 1$, set $X_{n+1} = X_n$. If $Y_n = 0$ and $|X_n| > 1$, choose $X_{n+1}$ in ${-1,0,1}$ according to the limit distribution. If $Y_n = 1$ and $|X_n| \leq 1$, add $\pm 3$ to $X_n$. Finally, fiddle with the case $Y_n = 1$ and $|X_n| > 1$ to get a martingale. – D. Thomine Oct 31 '18 at 14:30
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    Have a look at Section 2.2 here... it's not exactly what you want to have (because the limiting distribution is different) but it should be possible to adapt the idea. – saz Oct 31 '18 at 20:44

1 Answers1

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Below are the details for the nice example outlined in D. Thomine's comment:

Let $(Y_n)$ be independent r.v. with values in $\{0, 1\}$ and with $\mathbb{P}(Y_n = 0) = 1-1/n$. Also, independently from the $(Y_n)$, let $(Z_n)$ be i.i.d. r.v. with values in $\{-1, 0, 1\}$ according to the limit distribution. Starting from $X_0 = 0$, we iteratively define $X_{n}$ by the following transition rule:

\begin{array}{|c|c|c|} \hline & Y_n = 0 & Y_n = 1 \\ \hline |X_{n-1}| \leq 1 & X_{n-1} & X_{n-1} \pm 3 \\ \hline |X_{n-1}| > 1 & Z_n & nX_{n-1} - (n-1)Z_n \\ \hline \end{array}

(Here $\pm 3$ means with equal chance of adding or subtracting 3, independently from everything else.) It's easy to verify this is a martingale. Also, observe that $|X_n| > 1$ if and only if $Y_n = 1$.

To verify condition (2), notice that $|X_n| > 4$ only if $Y_{n-1} = Y_n = 1$. It follows from the convergence of $\sum \frac{1}{n^2}$ and the Borel-Cantelli Lemma that this a.s. will not happen infinitely often.

To verify condition (1), notice that for $a = -1, 0, 1$, $X_n = a$ if $Y_{n-1} = 1, Z_n = a$, provided $Y_n \neq 1$. If follows from the divergence of $\sum \frac{1}{n}$, the 2nd Borel-Cantelli Lemma, and the previous paragraph that this a.s. will happen infinitely often.

Finally, to verify condition (3), we just compute the distributions of $X_n$. Notice that $X_n$ are integer-valued by construction, and $P(|X_n| > 1) = P(Y_n = 1) = 1-1/n \rightarrow 0$. It remains to show $P(X_n = a) \rightarrow p_a$ for $a = -1, 0, 1$, where $p_a$ are pre-assigned. Using the transition rule, we have \begin{align} P(X_n = a) &= P(Y_n = 0) [P(X_{n-1} = a) + P(|X_{n-1}| > 1) P(Z_n = a)] \\ &= (1-1/n) (P(X_{n-1} = a) + p_a/(n-1)). \end{align} Define $p_n = \frac{P(X_n = a)}{1-1/n}$, this becomes \begin{align} p_n &= [1-1/(n-1)] p_{n-1} + p_a/(n-1) \\ p_n - p_a &= [1-1/(n-1)] (p_{n-1} - p_a) \\ &= \prod_{k=1}^n [1-1/(k-1)] (p_0 - p_a) \\ &\rightarrow 0. \end{align} Thus, $P(X_n = a) = (1-1/n) p_n \rightarrow p_a$, and we are done showing condition (3).

tim87
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