A study on the Weibull and Pareto distributions motivated by Chvátal's theorem

Abstract

Let $B(n,p)$ denote a binomial random variable with parameters $n$ and $p$. Chvátal's theorem says that for any fixed $n\ge 2$, as $m$ ranges over $\{0,\dots ,n\}$, the probability $q_m:=P(B(n,m/n)\le m)$ is the smallest when $m$ is closest to $\frac{2n}{3}$. Motivated by this theorem, we consider the minimum value problem on the probability that a random variable is at most its expectation, when its distribution is the Weibull distribution or the Pareto distribution in this note.

8 pages