Moment duality and propagation of exchangeability

Abstract

We identify necessary and sufficient conditions for a class of random mappings to send exchangeable $\{0,1\}$-sequences to other exchangeable $\{0,1\}$-sequences. We call this property the propagation of exchangeability, and show that any mapping that propagates exchangeability induces a pair of forward- and backward-in-time processes that are moment duals. This establishes a transparent, tractable, and applicable connection between moment duality and the propagation of exchangeability. We illustrate the usefulness of our results by constructing lookdown models for $Ξ$-Fleming--Viot processes with frequency-dependent selection.