[Math] Conditional expectation of product of two random variables

conditional-expectationexpected value

I'm quite new to statistics and I'm struggling with this problem.

Two random variables $X$ ~ Normal$(1, 2)$ and conditioning on $X = x$, $Y$ ~ Normal$(x + 2, 3)$. I want to find $\mathbb{E}[XY]$.
This is what I've tried:

$$\begin{align}\mathbb{E}[XY] &= \mathbb{E}[\mathbb{E}[XY|X]]\\&=\mathbb{E}[X\mathbb{E}[Y|X]]\end{align}$$

I have two questions:

  1. Is moving $X$ from inside the inner expectation out to the outer expectation considered valid? And why is that?
  2. Suppose the answer to 1 is yes, how would I proceed from here? I'm thinking of replacing $\mathbb{E}[Y|X]$ with $X + 2$. Am I on the right track?

Best Answer

Yes, moving $X$ out of the conditional expectation is right. This is a general property of conditional expectations: $E(XY|\mathbb G)=XE(Y|\mathbb G)$ if $X$ is measurable w.r.t. $\mathbb G$.

By hypothesis the mean of $Y$ given $X$ is $X+2$. Hence $EXY=E(X(X+2))=EX^{2}+2EX =5$.

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