2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/130531In certain problems in a variety of applied probability settings (from probabilistic analysis of algorithms to statistical physics), the central requirement is to solve a recursive distributional equation of the form X =^d g((ξ_i,X_i),i\geq 1). Here (ξ_i) and g(\cdot) are given and the X_i are independent copies of the unknown distribution X. We survey this area, emphasizing examples where the function g(\cdot) is essentially a ``maximum'' or ``minimum'' function. We draw attention to the theoretical question of endogeny: in the associated recursive tree process X_i, are the X_i measurable functions of the innovations process (ξ_i)?Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/105051605000000142 in the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org)ProbabilityStatistics Theory60E05, 62E10, 68Q25, 82B44. (Primary)text