Bounds, Inequalities, and Monotonicity Properties for Some Specialized Renewal Processes

Abstract

Renewal processes with increasing mean residual life and decreasing failure rate interarrival time distributions are investigated. Various two-sided bounds are obtained for $M(t)$, the expected number of renewals in $\lbrack 0, t\rbrack$. It is shown that if the interarrival time distribution has increasing mean residual life with mean $\mu$, then the expected forward recurrence time is increasing in $t \geqslant 0$, as is $M(t) - t/\mu$. If the interarrival time distribution has decreasing failure rate then $M(t)$ is concave, and the forward and backward recurrence time distributions are stochastically increasing in $t \geqslant 0$.