Whether or not to open Pandora's box

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Doval, Laura
• 署名单位: California Institute of Technology
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2018.01.005
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 127-158
• 关键词: search; information acquisition

摘要

I study a single-agent sequential search problem as in Weitzman (1979). Contrary to Weitzman, conditional on stopping, the agent may take any uninspected box without first inspecting its contents. This introduces a new trade-off. By taking a box without inspection, the agent saves on its inspection costs. However, by inspecting it, he may discover that its contents are lower than he anticipated. I identify sufficient conditions on the parameters of the environment under which I characterize the optimal policy. Both the order in which boxes are inspected and the stopping rule may differ from that in Weitzman's model. Moreover, I provide additional results that partially characterize the optimal policy when these conditions fail. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.