Level Crossing Ordering of Skip-Free-to-the-Right Continuous-Time Markov Chains

Abstract

As proposed by Irle and Gani in 2001, a processXis said to be slower in level crossing than a processYif it takesXstochastically longer to exceed any given level than it doesY. In this paper, we extend a result of Irle (2003), relative to the level crossing ordering of uniformizable skip-free-to-the-right continuous-time Markov chains, to derive a new set of sufficient conditions for the level crossing ordering of these processes. We apply our findings to birth-death processes with and without catastrophes, and M/M/s/csystems.