We consider in this paper, a spectrum sharing cognitive radio system with a ratio selection scheme; where one out of N independent-and-identically- distributed transmit antennas is selected such that the ratio of the secondary transmitter (ST) to the secondary receiver (SR) channel gain to the interference from the ST to the primary receiver (PR) channel gain is maximized. Although previous works considered perfect, outdated, or partial channel state information at the transmitter, we stress that using such assumptions may lead to a feedback overhead for updating the SR with the ST-PR interference channel estimation. Considering only statistical knowledge of the ST-PR channel gain, we investigate a ratio selection scheme using a mean value (MV)-based power allocation strategy referred to as MV-based scheme. We first provide the exact statistics in terms of probability density function and cumulative distribution function of the secondary channel gain as well as of the interference channel gain. Furthermore, we derive exact cumulative density function of the received signal-to-noise ratio at the SR where the ST uses a power allocation based on instantaneous perfect channel state information (CSI) referred to as CSI-based scheme. These statistics are then used to derive exact closed form expressions of the outage probability, symbol error rate, and ergodic capacity of the secondary system when the interference channel from the primary transmitter (PT) to the SR is ignored. Furthermore, an asymptotical analysis is also carried out for the MV-based scheme as well as for the CSI-based scheme to derive the generalized diversity gain for each. Subsequently, we address the performance analysis based on exact statistics of the combined signal-to-interference-plus- noise ratio at the SR of the more challenging case; when the PT-SR interference channel is considered. Numerical results in a Rayleigh fading environment manifest that the MV-based scheme outperforms the CSI-based scheme provided that a low interference power constraint is deployed, implying that the MV-based scheme is more suitable for practical systems. © 1983-2012 IEEE.