In probability theory, the multinomial distribution is a generalization of the binomial distribution. The binomial distribution is the probability distribution of the number of "successes" in n independent Bernoulli trials, with the same probability of "success" on each trial. In a multinomial distribution, each trial results in exactly one of some fixed finite number k of possible outcomes, with probabilities p1, ..., pk (so that pi ≥ 0 for i = 1, ..., k and
SpecificationProbability mass functionThe probability mass function of the multinomial distribution is: for non-negative integers x1, ..., xk. PropertiesThe expected value of draws in the ith bin is The covariance matrix is as follows. Each diagonal entry is the variance of a binomially distributed random variable, and is therefore The off-diagonal entries are the covariances: for i, j distinct. All covariances are negative because for fixed N, an increase in one component of a multinomial vector requires a decrease in another component. This is a k × k nonnegative-definite matrix of rank k − 1. The off-diagonal entries of the corresponding correlation matrix are Note that the sample size drops out of this expression. Each of the k components separately has a binomial distribution with parameters n and pi, for the appropriate value of the subscript i. The support of the multinomial distribution is the set : the number of n-combinations of a multiset with k types, or multiset coefficient. Related distributions
See alsoExternal linksReferencesEvans, Merran; Nicholas Hastings, Brian Peacock (2000). Statistical Distributions. New York: Wiley, 134-136. 3rd ed.. ISBN 0-471-37124-6.
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