A more general Pandora rule?

DOI10.1016/J.JET.2015.10.009zbMATH Open1369.91152arXiv1509.09095OpenAlexW2126543674MaRDI QIDQ893419FDOQ893419

Authors: Wojciech Olszewski, Richard Weber 

Publication date: 19 November 2015

Published in: Journal of Economic Theory (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: In a classic model analysed by Weitzman an agent is presented with boxes containing prizes. She may open boxes in any order, discover prizes within, and optimally stop. She wishes to maximize the expected value of the greatest prize found, minus costs of opening boxes. The problem is solved by a so-called Pandora's rule, and has applications to searching for a house or job. However, this does not model the problem of a student who searches for the subject to choose as her major and benefits from all courses she takes while searching. So motivated, we ask whether there are any problems for which a generalized Pandora's rule is optimal when the objective is a more general function of all the discovered prizes. We show that if a generalized Pandora's rule is optimal for all specifications of costs and prize distributions, then the objective function must take a special form. We also explain how the Gittins index theorem can be applied to an equivalent multi-armed bandit problem to prove optimality of Pandora's rule for the student's problem. However, we also show that there do exist some problems which are not of multi-armed bandit type for which Pandora's rule is optimal.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.09095

Recommendations

• Whether or not to open Pandora's box
• Optimal Search
• Great expectations. II: Generalized expected utility as a universal decision rule
• Optimality in multi-person stopping problem with general rewards
• On multiple stopping bales

zbMATH Keywords

optimal scheduling and stoppingWeitzman's Pandora rule

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Sequential statistical design (62L05) Search theory (90B40) Mathematical economics (91B99)

Cites Work

• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Optimal Search for the Best Alternative
• Attributes

Cited In (5)

• Whether or not to open Pandora's box
• Delegated concept testing in new product development
• Legislative informational lobbying
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Pandora’s Box Problem with Order Constraints

This page was built for publication: A more general Pandora rule?

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q893419)