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The weighted sample mean, ¯, is itself a random variable. Its expected value and standard deviation are related to the expected values and standard deviations of the observations, as follows. For simplicity, we assume normalized weights (weights summing to one).
The expected value of a random variable is the weighted average of the possible values it might take on, with the weights being the respective probabilities. More generally, the expected value of a function of a random variable is the probability-weighted average of the values the function takes on for each possible value of the random variable.
For normally distributed random variables inverse-variance weighted averages can also be derived as the maximum likelihood estimate for the true value. Furthermore, from a Bayesian perspective the posterior distribution for the true value given normally distributed observations and a flat prior is a normal distribution with the inverse-variance weighted average as a mean and variance ().
The second form above illustrates that the logarithm of the geometric mean is the weighted arithmetic mean of the logarithms of the individual values. If all the weights are equal, the weighted geometric mean simplifies to the ordinary unweighted geometric mean. [1]
Informally, the expected value is the mean of the possible values a random variable can take, weighted by the probability of those outcomes. Since it is obtained through arithmetic, the expected value sometimes may not even be included in the sample data set; it is not the value you would expect to get in reality.
The weighted harmonic mean is the preferable method for averaging multiples, such as the price–earnings ratio (P/E). If these ratios are averaged using a weighted arithmetic mean, high data points are given greater weights than low data points. The weighted harmonic mean, on the other hand, correctly weights each data point. [14]
In mathematics, the geometric mean is a mean or average which indicates a central tendency of a finite collection of positive real numbers by using the product of their values (as opposed to the arithmetic mean which uses their sum).
As regards weighting, one can either weight all of the measured ages equally, or weight them by the proportion of the sample that they represent. For example, if two thirds of the sample was used for the first measurement and one third for the second and final measurement, then one might weight the first measurement twice that of the second.