[Math] Why Cauchy Distribution isn’t Exponental Family

probabilitystatistics

We know that the density function of standard Cauchy Distribution is $p(x)=\frac{\lambda}{\pi (\lambda^2+x^2)}$.

It seems that $p(x)$ can't be written as the form of Exponential Family $$f_{X}(x;\theta)=h(x)\exp\Big(\sum^{s}_{i=1}{\eta_i (\theta)T_i (x)-A(\theta)}\Big)$$

But how to prove it strictly? or how to show that Cauchy Distribution doesn't belong to the Exponential Family?

Best Answer

Hint: If $X$ were from exponential family, it would have finite expectation (you may even express it in terms of $A(\theta)$).

Related Question