A taste for variety

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ashkenazi-Golan, Galit; Karos, Dominik; Lehrer, Ehud
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; University of Bielefeld; Tel Aviv University
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.05.003
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 396-422
• 关键词: Repeated decision problem; intertemporal choice; Time-inconsistent preferences; habit formation

摘要

A decision maker repeatedly chooses one of a finite set of actions. In each period, the decision maker's payoff depends on a fixed basic payoff of the chosen action and the frequency with the action has been chosen in the past. We analyze optimal strategies associated with three types evaluations of infinite payoffs: discounted present value, the limit inferior, and the limit superior of the partial averages. We show that when the first two are the evaluation schemes (and discount factor is sufficiently high), a stationary strategy can achieve the best possible outcome. However, for the latter evaluation scheme, a stationary strategy can achieve the best outcome if all actions that are chosen with strictly positive frequency by an optimal stationary strategy the same basic payoff.