Do the moments of the reciprocal normal distribution exist

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The following question is based on this question: Reciprocal of a normal variable with non-zero mean and small variance

To summarize the main information from that question:

$X$ is a normally distributed random variable:

$$X \sim \mathcal{N}(\mu,\sigma^2)$$

Then $Y = 1/X$ has the following probability density function (see
wiki):

$$f(y) = \frac{1}{y^2\sqrt{2\sigma^2\pi}}\,\exp\left(-\frac{(\frac{1}{y} – \mu)^2}{2 \sigma^2}\right)$$

This distribution of $Y$ does not have moments since
(stackExchange):

$$\int_{-\infty}^{+\infty}|x|f(x)\,dx = \infty$$

An intuitive
explanation

of this is that the distributions tails are too heavy and consequently
the law of large number fails. The more samples that are drawn and
averaged the less stable this average is. The non-zero probability
density that $X = 0$ means that $Y$ will not have finite moments since
there is a non-zero probability that $Y = \infty$.

However, I am interested in the case where $X$ is normally distributed like above, but in addition $a<X<b$ with $a>0$ and $a, b$ both finite numbers (so a truncated normal distribution).

Would the moments of the distribution of $Y$ exist for that case? Intuitively, I would expect they do because the probability that $X=0$ is zero in this case, as apposed to the original question. However, I do not have the necessary math skills to rigourously work out the integral.

Can anybody tell me whether (a) the (first and second) moments exist and (b) if so, what they are?

Best Answer

We have $E|\frac 1 {X^{n}}| \leq \frac 1 {a^{n}} <\infty$, so all moments exist. I think explicit computation of the moments is not possible.

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