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Suppose $N\sim Poisson(\lambda)$ and $\lambda\sim Unif(0, 10)$ what is the expected value $E(N)$?

I feel like I should just plug in the expected value of Unif(0, 10) but that seems too easy. Anyone have any thoughts?

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${\rm E}(N) = {\rm E}{\rm E}(N|\lambda ) = {\rm E}(\lambda ) = 5$.

Elaborating. By the law of total expectation, $ {\rm E}(N) = {\rm E}{\rm E}(N|\lambda ). $ To show that ${\rm E}(N|\lambda ) = \lambda$, note that, given $\lambda = s$, $N$ has mean $s$. Hence, ${\rm E}(N|\lambda =s) = s$, and in turn ${\rm E}(N|\lambda ) = \lambda$. Thus ${\rm E}(N) = {\rm E}(\lambda) = 5$.

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    Awesome, thanks a lot.2011-06-20