On a characterization of Poisson distribution

Abstract

Recently Rao (1963) has considered discrete models where an original observation produced by nature is subjected to a destructive process and we observe the undestroyed part of the original observation. Suppose the original observation produced by nature is distributed according to a Poisson distribution with parameter λ and the probability that the original observation n is reduced to r due to the destructive process is Now if Y denotes the resulting random variable (r.v.), then it is easily seen that Let us call this condition the *-condition. Later Rao and Rubin ({1964),Theorem 1) proved that the *-condition is a characterizing property of the Poisson distribution.