The Virtues of Hesitation: Optimal Timing in a Non-Stationary World

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Khan, Urmee; Stinchcombe, Maxwell B.
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Riverside; University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20121282
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 1147-1176
• 关键词: unemployment; equilibrium

摘要

In many economic, political, and social situations, circumstances change at random points in time, reacting is costly, and reactions appropriate to present circumstances may become inappropriate upon future changes, requiring further costly reaction. Waiting is informative if arrival of the next change has non-constant hazard rate. We identify two classes of situations: in the first, delayed reaction is optimal only when the hazard rate of further changes is decreasing; in the second, it is optimal only when the hazard rate of further changes is increasing. These results in semi-Markovian decision theory provide motivations for building delay into decision systems.