On convergence of moment generating functions

Mukherjea et al. Mukherjea, A., Rao, M., Suen, S., 2006. A note on moment generating functions. Statist. Probab. Lett. 76, 1185-1189] proved that if a sequence of moment generating functions M_n(t) converges pointwise to a moment generating function M(t) for all t in some open interval of the real line, not necessarily containing the origin, then the distribution functions F_n (corresponding to M_n) converge weakly to the distribution function F (corresponding to M). In this note, we improve this result and obtain conditions of the convergence which seem to be sharp: F_n converge weakly to F if M_n(t_k) converge to M(t_k), k=1,2,…, for some sequence {t₁,t₂,…} having the minimal and the maximal points. A similar result holds for characteristic functions.