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If I have two dependent continuous random variables $X$ and $Y$ with known pdf's $f(x)$ and $f(y)$. How to calculate their join probability distribution $f(x, y)$?

For example if $Y = \sin{X}$ and I want to calculate the pdf of $Z$ where $Z = \frac{X}{Y}$ or $Z = X - Y$. So, how to find out $f(x, y)$ first?

2 Answers 2

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If $Y$ is a regular function of $X$, $(X,Y)$ cannot have a density since $(X,Y)$ is always on the graph of the function, which has measure zero. But you should not use this to compute the distribution of $Z$ a function of $X$.

Rather, you could use the fact that $Z$ has density $f_Z$ if and only if, for every measurable function $g$, $ E(g(Z))=\int g(z)f_Z(z)\mathrm{d}z. $ But, if $Z=h(X)$, $E(g(Z))=E(g(h(X)))$, and by definition of the distribution of $X$, $ E(g(h(X)))=\int g(h(x))f_X(x)\mathrm{d}x, $ where $f_X$ is the density of $X$. In the end, you know $h$ and $f_X$ and you must make the two expressions of $E(g(Z))$ coincide for every function $g$, hence a change of variable I will let you discover should yield an expression of $f_Z$ depending on $f_X$.

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You can't. You need to know how they are dependent.

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    Nice, I know how they are dependent. I edited my question2011-05-07