Tail asymptotics for the supremum of a random walk when the mean is not finite
We consider the sums S-n = xi(1) +...+xi(n) of independent identically distributed random variables. We do not assume that the xi's have a finite mean. Under subexponential type conditions on distribution of the summands, we find the asymptotics of the probability P{M > x} as x --> infinity, provided that M = sup{S-n, n greater than or equal to 1} is a proper random variable. Special attention is paid to the case of tails which are regularly varying at infinity. We provide some sufficient conditions for the integrated weighted tail distribution to be subexponential. We supplement these conditions by a number of examples which cover both the infinite- and the finite-mean cases. In particular, we show that the subexponentiality of distribution F does not imply the subexponentiality of its integrated tail distribution F-I.
integrated weighted tail distribution supremum of sums of random variables large deviation probabilities subexponential distribution